preventing reading difficulties in young children

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 416 465 CS 013 084

AUTHOR Snow, Catherine E., Ed.; Burns, M. Susan, Ed.; Griffin, Peg,Ed

TITLE Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children.INSTITUTION National Academy of Sciences National Research Council,

Washington, DC. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciencesand Education.

SPONS AGENCY Department of Education, Washington, DC.ISBN ISBN-0-309-06418-xPUB DATE 1998-00-00NOTE 445p.; Prepared by the Committee on the Preservation of

Reading Difficulties in Young Children.CONTRACT H023S50001PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070)EDRS PRICE MF01/PC18 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Beginning Reading; *Classroom Environment; Early Childhood

Education; Early Intervention; High Risk Students;Literature Reviews; Primary Education; *ReadingDifficulties; *Reading Instruction; *Reading Research;Reading Skills; Research Needs; Teaching Methods

IDENTIFIERS Reading Management

ABSTRACTSuggesting that empirical work in the field of reading has

advanced sufficiently to allow substantial agreed-upon results andconclusions, this literature review cuts through the detail of partiallyconvergent, sometimes discrepant research findings to provide an integratedpicture of how reading develops and how reading instruction should proceed.The focus of the review is prevention. Sketched is a picture of theconditions under which reading is most likely to develop easily--conditionsthat include stimulating preschool environments, excellent readinginstruction, and the absence of any of a wide array of risk factors. It alsoprovides recommendations for practice as well as recommendations for furtherresearch. After a preface and executive summary, chapters are (1)Introduction; (2) The Process of Learning to Read; (3) Who Has ReadingDifficulties; (4) Predic:ors of Success and Failure in Reading; (5)

Preventing Reading Difficulties before Kindergarten; (6) InstructionalStrategies for Kindergarten and the Primary Grades; (7) OrganizationalStrategies for Kindergarten and the Primary Grades; (8) Helping Children withReading Difficulties in Grades 1 to 3; (9) The Agents of Change; and (10)Recommendations for Practice and Research. Contains biographical sketches ofthe committee members and an index. Contains approximately 800 references.(RS)

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2(-) NATIONAL NESE- COUNCWIrr

PreventingReadingDifficultiesin YoungChildren

Catherine E. Snow, M. Susan Burns,and Peg Griffin, Editors

Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficultiesin Young Children

Commission on Behavioral andSocial Sciences and Education

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESSWashington, DC 1998

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NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS ziot Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Boardof the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medi-cine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their specialcompetences and with regard for appropriate balance.

The study was supported by Grant No. H023S50001 between the National Academy ofSciences and the U.S. Department of Education. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, orrecommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessar-ily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in YoungChildren.

Preventing reading difficulties in young children / Committeeon the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children ;Catherine E. Snow, M. Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin, editors.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-309-06418-X (cloth)1. Reading (Primary)United States. 2. Reading

disabilityUnited States. 3. ReadingRemedial teachingUnitedStates. 4. Reading comprehensionUnited States. 5. Wordrecognition. I. Snow, Catherine E. II. Burns, M. Susan (MarieSusan) III. Griffin, Peg. IV. Title.

LB1525.76 .C66 1998372.4ddc21

98-9031

Additional copies of this report are available from National Academy Press, 2101 Constitu-tion Avenue, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, D.C. 20055.Call (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area).This report is also available online at http://www.nap.edu

Printed in the United States of AmericaCopyright 1998 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

COMMITTEE ON THE PREVENTION OF READINGDIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

CATHERINE SNOW (Chair), Graduate School of Education, HarvardUniversity

MARILYN JAGER ADAMS, GTE Internet Working Group, and VisitingScholar, Harvard University

BARBARA T. BOWMAN, Erikson Institute, Chicago, IllinoisBARBARA FOORMAN, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas,

and Houston Medical SchoolDOROTHY FOWLER, Fairfax County Public Schools, Annandale,

VirginiaCLAUDE N. GOLDENBERG, Department of Teacher Education,

California State University, Long BeachEDWARD J. KAME'ENUI, Department of Special Education, University

of Oregon, EugeneWILLIAM LABOV, Department of Linguistics and Psychology,

University of PennsylvaniaRICHARD K. OLSON, Department of Psychology, University of

Colorado, BoulderANNEMARIE SULLIVAN PALINCSAR, School of Education, University

of Michigan, Ann ArborCHARLES A. PERFETTI, Department of Psychology, University of

PittsburghHOLLIS S. SCARBOROUGH, Brooklyn College, City University of New

York, and Haskins. Laboratories, New Haven, ConnecticutSALLY SHAYWITZ, Department of Pediatrics, Yale UniversityKEITH STANOVICH, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,

University of TorontoDOROTHY STRICKLAND, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers

UniversitySAM STRINGFIELD, Center for the Social Organization of Schools,

Johns Hopkins UniversityELIZABETH SULZBY, School of Education, University of Michigan,

Ann Arbor

M. SUSAN BURNS, Study DirectorPEG GRIFFIN, Research AssociateSHARON VANDIVERE, Project Assistant

iii

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society ofdistinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the further-ance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority ofthe charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires itto advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts ispresident of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of theNational Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It isautonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the Na-tional Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The Na-tional Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting nationalneeds, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engi-neers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciencesto secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination ofpolicy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibilitygiven to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to thefederal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research,and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's pur-poses of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accor-dance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principaloperating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy ofEngineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engi-neering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Instituteof Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman,respectively, of the National Research Council.

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Preface

"Few things in life are less efficient than a group of people tryingto write a sentence" (Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle, 1996).The decision that a group of people should write a report of this sizeclearly was not motivated by the goal of efficiency; it was motivatedby the goals of comprehensiveness and accuracy and made feasibleby the expectation of compromise and consensus. The field of read-ing is one that has long been marked by controversies and disagree-ments. Indeed, the term "reading wars" has been part of the debateover reading research for the past 25 years. The unpleasantness ofthe conflicts among reading researchers was moderated, if not elimi-nated, by the realization that all the participants are primarily inter-ested in ensuring the well-being of young children and in promotingoptimal literacy instruction.

The study reported in this volume was undertaken with the as-sumption that empirical work in the field of reading had advancedsufficiently to allow substantial agreed-upon results and conclusionsthat could form a basis for breaching the differences among thewarring parties. The process of doing the study revealed the correct-ness of the assumption that this has been an appropriate time toundertake a synthesis of the research on early reading development.

vi PREFACE

The knowledge base is now large enough that the controversies thathave dominated discussions of reading development and readinginstruction have given way to a widely honored pax lectura, theconditions of which include a shared focus on the needs and rights ofall children to learn to read. Under the treaties that have recentlybeen entered into, furthermore, the focus of attention has shiftedfrom the researchers' theories and data back to the teacher, alone inher classroom with a heterogeneous group of children, all awaitingtheir passports to literacy.

From the perspective of the teacher, our task can be conceptual-ized as cutting through the detail of partially convergent, sometimesdiscrepant research findings to provide an integrated picture of howreading develops and how reading instruction should proceed. Itmay come as a surprise to the reader to find that consensus in achiev-ing that integrated picture, among the members of this diverse com-mittee, was not difficult to reach. All members agreed that readingshould be defined as a process of getting meaning from print, usingknowledge about the written alphabet and about the sound structureof oral language for purposes of achieving understanding. All thusalso agreed that early reading instruction should include direct teach-ing of information about sound-symbol relationships to childrenwho do not know about them and that it must also maintain a focuson the communicative purposes and personal value of reading.

In this report, the committee makes recommendations for prac-tice, as well as recommendations for further research that needs tobe undertaken. Our discussions also explored how people need tostart thinking about reading and reading instruction. This turnedout to be harder to formulate, because it evokes the often frustratingand familiarly academic position that "this is an incredibly compli-cated phenomenon." Although we can see the readers' eyes rollingat the predictability of this claim, we nonetheless persist in the con-tention that much of the difficulty in seeking real reforms in readinginstruction and intervention derives from simplistic beliefs aboutthese issues, and so one step in improving matters involves makingthe complexities known.

Not only the first-grade teacher, but also the parent, the pediatri-cian, the school administrator, the curriculum consultant, the text-

PREFACE vii

book publisher, the state legislator, and the secretary of educationneed to understand both what is truly hard about learning to readand how wide-ranging and varied the experiences are that supportand facilitate reading acquisition. All these people need to under-stand as well that many factors that correlate with reading fail toexplain it, that many experiences contribute to reading developmentwithout being prerequisite to it, and that there are many prerequi-sites, so no single one can be considered sufficient.

The focus of this report is prevention. We thus try to sketch apicture of the conditions under which reading is most likely to de-velop easilyconditions that include stimulating preschool environ-ments, excellent reading instruction, and the absence of any of awide array of risk factors. Our focus on trying to provide optimalconditions does not mean that we think that children experiencingless than optimal conditions are in any sense doomed to failure inreading; many children from poor and uneducated families learn toread well, even without excellent preschool classroom experience orsuperb early reading instruction. Nonetheless, with an eye to reduc-ing risk and preventing failure, we focus on mechanisms for provid-ing the best possible situation for every child.

We submit this report with high hopes that it may indeed markthe end of the reading wars and that it will contribute to the success-ful reading development of many children. It is the collective prod-uct of the entire committee, and it could not have been producedwithout the selfless contributions of time, thought, and hard work ofall members, or without their willingness to confront with integrityand resolve with grace their many productive disagreements withone another.

Catherine Snow, ChairSusan Burns, Study DirectorCommittee on the Prevention of ReadingDifficulties in Young Children

Acknowledgments

Many people contributed in many different ways to the comple-tion of this report, and we are most grateful for their efforts. First,the committee and staff would like to acknowledge Ellen Schiller(U.S. Department of Education), Naomi Karp (U.S. Department ofEducation), and Reid Lyon (National Institutes of Health) for assis-tance given during the project. Judith Heumann, Tom Hehir, andLouis Danielson of the Office of Special Education (U.S. Departmentof Education) and Duane Alexander of the National Institutesof Health provided support and encouragement. Our thanks toRebecca Fitch (U.S. Department of Education) and Fritz Mosher(Carnegie Corporation) for their help in developing plans for liaisonactivities.

During the information-gathering phase of our work, a numberof people made presentations to the committee on programs thatfocused on the prevention of reading difficulties: Steve Barnett (mod-erator); Elizabeth Segal (Beginning with Books); Marcia Invernizzi(Book Buddies); Andrew Hayes (Comprehensive Family Literacy Pro-gram); John Guthrie (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction); BobStark (Early ID: Reading Early Identification and Intervention); Bar-bara Taylor (Early Intervention in Reading); Jerry Zimmerman andCarolyn Brown (Breakthrough to Literacy); Sabra Gelfond (HAILO);Annette Dove (Home Instruction Program for Preschool Young-

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x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

stersHIPPY); Pia Rebel lo (Home Instruction Program for PreschoolYoungstersHIPPY); Darcy Vogel (Intergenerational Tutoring Pro-gram); Ethna Reid (Keyboarding, Reading, Spelling); Bob Lemireand Kathy Hook (Phonics-Based Reading); George Farkas (ReadingOne-One); M. Trika Smith-Burke (Reading Recovery); JamesWendorf, Linda Gambrell, and Suzanne Kea ley (RIF's Running StartProgram); John Nunnary (Success For All); Marilyn Howard (Audi-tory Discrimination in Depth).

In addition, materials and advice were provided by various pro-grams and professional and advocacy groups. The program materi-als include: 4 H Family; Books Aloud; Books and Beyond; Children'sTelevision Workshop/Sesame Street; Class-Wide Peer Tutoring;Cornell Cooperative Extension; Dyslexia Training Program; Expedi-tionary Learning Outward Bound; First Book; Four Blocks; FourRemedial Reading Programs; Friend/Non-Friend; Getting Books inChildren's Hands; Ladders to Literacy: Kindergarten; Ladders toLiteracy: Preschool; Listening Comprehension; Little Planet Pub-lishing; National Reading Research Center-Georgia; National SpeechLanguage Therapy Center; New Chance; Open Court; Project ReadProgram; Project Seed; Reach Out and Read; Readnet: Pathways toLiteracy Readnet Foundation; Stony Brook Reading and Language;Sound Partners; Waterford Early Reading Program; Wiggle Works;and Youth Opportunities Unlimited.

The professional associations and other groups include theAmerican Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; AmericanHumane Association; American Library Association; American Psy-chological Association, Division 37; Child, Youth and Family Ser-vices; American Public Welfare Association; Big Brothers/Big Sistersof America; Child Welfare League of America; Families, 4-H andNutrition; Home and School Institute; Initiatives for Children; Insti-tute for Educational Leadership; International Reading Association;Learning Disabilities Association; National 4-H Council; NationalAssociation for Bilingual Education; National Association of Elemen-tary School Principals; National Association of School Psycholo-gists; National Association of State Boards of Education; NationalCenter for Education in Maternal and Child Health; National Cen-ter for Family Literacy; National Center for Immigrant Students;National Education Association; National School Boards Associa-tion; Save the Children International; and School-Age Child CareProject.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

The panel was assisted in its deliberations by a number of peoplewho wrote background papers: Steven Barnett, "The Effects ofPreschool Programs on Reading Achievement"; Lynn Fuchs, "Moni-toring Student Progress Toward the Development of Reading Com-petence: Classroom-Based Assessment Methods"; Stanley Herr,"Special Education Law and Young Children with Reading Disabili-ties or at Risk of Such Disabilities"; Laura Klenk, "Review of Se-lected Remediation and Early Intervention Programs"; JamesMcClelland, "The Basis and Remediation of Language Impairmentsin Children"; Kevin S. McGrew, "The Measurement of ReadingAchievement by Different Individually Administered StandardizedReading Tests: Apples and Apples, or Apples and Oranges?"; RobertNeedlman, "Pediatric Interventions to Prevent Reading Problems inYoung Children"; Carol Padden, "Reading and Deafness"; BennettA. Shaywitz, "The Neurobiology of Reading and Reading Disabil-ity"; Margaret J. Snow ling, "A Review of the Literature on Reading,Informed by PDP Models, with Special Regard to Children BetweenBirth and Age 8, Who May Be at Risk of Not Learning to Read."

Numerous researchers also shared their work with the commit-tee, including Catherine Dorsey-Gaines (Kean College of New Jer-sey); Vivian L. Gadsden (University of Pennsylvania); Russell Gersten(University of Oregon); Robert Rueda (University of Southern Cali-fornia); Rune J. Simeonsson (University of North Carolina); FrankR. Vellutino (State University of New York, Albany); and specialeducation project directors present at our information-gatheringmeeting in July 1996.

This report has been reviewed by individuals chosen for theirdiverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with pro-cedures approved by the National Research Council's Report Re-view Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to pro-vide candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and theNational Research Council in making the published report as soundas possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional stan-dards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the studycharge. The content of the review comments and draft manuscriptremain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative pro-cess.

We wish to thank the following individuals for their participa-tion in the review of this report: Benita A. Blachman, School ofEducation, Syracuse University; Peter Bryant, Department of Experi-

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xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

mental Psychology, University of Oxford; Courtney Cazden, Gradu-ate School of Education, Harvard University; Britton Chance, De-partments of Biochemistry and Biophysics (emeritus), University ofPennsylvania; Ruth Fielding-Barnsley, Psychology Department, Uni-versity of New England, New South Wales, Australia; John Guthrie,College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park; EileenKowler, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University; FrankManis, Department of Psychology, University of Southern Califor-nia; Luis Moll, Division of Language, Reading, and Culture, Univer-sity of Arizona; P. David Pearson, College of Education, MichiganState University; W. Charles Read, School of Education, Universityof Wisconsin, Madison; Patrick Suppes, Center for the Study ofLanguage and Information (emeritus), Stanford University; RichardWagner, Department of Psychology, Florida State University; andGrover J. Whitehurst, Department of Psychology, State University ofNew York, Stony Brook.

While the individuals listed above have provided many con-structive comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final con-tent of this report rests solely with the authoring committee and theNational Research Council.

Throughout the research, conceptualization, and writing phaseof this work, our coeditor, Peg Griffin, was an invaluable colleaguea strong-minded collaborator, a tireless writer, and a reliably good-natured colleague. Alexandra Wigdor, director of the Division onEducation, Labor, and Human Performance, and Janet Hansen, alsoof the division, provided guidance and support throughout theproject. This final product has benefited enormously from the edito-rial attention of Christine McShane. Marie Suizzo, Marilyn Dabady,Roger Butts, and Sharon Vandivere ably assisted the committee atdifferent stages. The committee extends its sincere thanks and ap-preciation to all those who assisted us in our work.

Catherine Snow, ChairSusan Burns, Study DirectorCommittee on the Prevention of ReadingDifficulties in Young Children

Contents

Executive Summary 1

PART I INTRODUCTION TO READING 15

1 Introduction 17

2 The Process of Learning to Read 41

PART II WHO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? 85

3 Who Has Reading Difficulties? 87

4 Predictors of Success and Failure in Reading 100

xiv CONTENTS

PART III PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION 135

5 Preventing Reading Difficulties Before Kindergarten 137

6 Instructional Strategies for Kindergarten and thePrimary Grades

7 Organizational Strategies for Kindergarten and thePrimary Grades

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226

8 Helping Children with Reading Difficulties inGrades 1 to 3 247

PART IV KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION 275

9 The Agents of Change 277

10 Recommendations for Practice and Research 313

References 345

Biographical Sketches 397

Index 406

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PreventingReadingDif tic dileitA YoungChildren

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Executive Summary

Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to readis highly valued and important for social and economic advance-ment. Of course, most children learn to read fairly well. In thisreport, we are most concerned with the large numbers of children inAmerica whose educational careers are imperiled because they donot read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the de-mands of an increasingly competitive economy. Current difficultiesin reading largely originate from rising demands for literacy, notfrom declining absolute levels of literacy. In a technological society,the demands for higher literacy are ever increasing, creating moregrievous consequences for those who fall short.

The importance of this problem led the U.S. Department of Edu-cation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services toask the National Academy of Sciences to establish a committee toexamine the prevention of reading difficulties. Our committee wascharged with conducting a study of the effectiveness of interventionsfor young children who are at risk of having problems learning toread. The goals of the project were three: (1) to comprehend a richbut diverse research base; (2) to translate the research findings intoadvice and guidance for parents, educators, publishers, and others

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2 PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

involved in the care and instruction of the young; and (3) to conveythis advice to the targeted audiences through a variety of publica-tions, conferences, and other outreach activities.

THE COMMITTEE'S APPROACH

The committee reviewed research on normal reading develop-ment and instruction; on risk factors useful in identifying groups andindividuals at risk of reading failure; and on prevention, interven-tion, and instructional approaches to ensuring optimal reading out-comes.

We found many informative literatures to draw on and haveaimed in this report to weave together the insights of many researchtraditions into clear guidelines for helping children become success-ful readers. In doing so, we also considered the current state ofaffairs in education for teachers and others working with youngchildren; policies of federal, state, and local governments impingingon young children's education; the pressures on publishers of cur-riculum materials, texts, and tests; programs addressed to parentsand to community action; and media activities.

Our main emphasis has been on the development of reading andon factors that relate to reading outcomes. We conceptualized ourtask as cutting through the detail of mostly convergent, but some-times discrepant, research findings to provide an integrated pictureof how reading develops and how its development can be promoted.

Our recommendations extend to all children. Granted, we havefocused our lens on children at risk for learning to read. But much ofthe instructional research we have reviewed encompasses, for a vari-ety of reasons, populations of students with varying degrees of risk.Good instruction seems to transcend characterizations of children'svulnerability for failure; the same good early literacy environmentand patterns of effective instruction are required for children whomight fail for different reasons.

Does this mean that the identical mix of instructional materialsand strategies will work for each and every child? Of course not. Ifwe have learned anything from this effort, it is that effective teachersare able to craft a special mix of instructional ingredients for every

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

child they work with. But it does mean that there is a common menuof materials, strategies, and environments from which effective teach-ers make choices. This in turn means that, as a society, our mostimportant challenge is to make sure that our teachers have access tothose tools and the knowledge required to use them well. In otherwords, there is little evidence that children experiencing difficultieslearning to read, even those with identifiable learning disabilities,need radically different sorts of supports than children at low risk,although they may need much more intensive support. Childhoodenvironments that support early literacy development and excellentinstruction are important for all children. Excellent instruction isthe best intervention for children who demonstrate problems learn-ing to read.

CONCEPTUALIZING READING ANDREADING INSTRUCTION

Effective reading instruction is built on a foundation that recog-nizes that reading ability is determined by multiple factors: manyfactors that correlate with reading fail to explain it; many experi-ences contribute to reading development without being prerequisiteto it; and although there are many prerequisites, none by itself isconsidered sufficient.

Adequate initial reading instruction requires that children:

use reading to obtain meaning from print,have frequent and intensive opportunities to read,are exposed to frequent, regular spelling-sound relationships,learn about the nature of the alphabetic writing system, andunderstand the structure of spoken words.

Adequate progress in learning to read English (or any alphabeticlanguage) beyond the initial level depends on:

having a working understanding of how sounds are repre-sented alphabetically,

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sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with differentkinds of texts,sufficient background knowledge and vocabulary to renderwritten texts meaningful and interesting,control over procedures for monitoring comprehension andrepairing misunderstandings, andcontinued interest and motivation to read for a variety ofpurposes.

Reading skill is acquired in a relatively predictable way by chil-dren who have normal or above-average language skills; have hadexperiences in early childhood that fostered motivation and pro-vided exposure to literacy in use; get information about the nature ofprint through opportunities to learn letters and to recognize theinternal structure of spoken words, as well as explanations about thecontrasting nature of spoken and written language; and attendschools that provide effective reading instruction and opportunitiesto practice reading.

Disruption of any of these developments increases the possibilitythat reading will be delayed or impeded. The association of poorreading outcomes with poverty and minority status no doubt reflectsthe accumulated effects of several of these risk factors, including lackof access to literacy-stimulating preschool experiences and to excel-lent, coherent reading instruction. In addition, a number of childrenwithout any obvious risk factors also develop reading difficulties.These children may require intensive efforts at intervention and ex-tra help in reading and accommodations for their disability through-out their lives.

There are three potential stumbling blocks that are known tothrow children off course on the journey to skilled reading. The firstobstacle, which arises at the outset of reading acquisition, is diffi-culty understanding and using the alphabetic principlethe ideathat written spellings systematically represent spoken words. It ishard to comprehend connected text if word recognition is inaccurateor laborious. The second obstacle is a failure to transfer the compre-hension skills of spoken language to reading and to acquire newstrategies that may be specifically needed for reading. The third

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5

obstacle to reading will magnify the first two: the absence or loss ofan initial motivation to read or failure to develop a mature apprecia-tion of the rewards of reading.

As in every domain of learning, motivation is crucial. Althoughmost children begin school with positive attitudes and expectationsfor success, by the end of the primary grades and increasingly there-after, some children become disaffected. The majority of readingproblems faced by today's adolescents and adults are the result ofproblems that might have been avoided or resolved in their earlychildhood years. It is imperative that steps be taken to ensure thatchildren overcome these obstacles during the primary grades.

Reducing the number of children who enter school with inad-equate literacy-related knowledge and skill is an important primarystep toward preventing reading difficulties. Although not a panacea,this would serve to reduce considerably the magnitude of the prob-lem currently facing schools. Children who are particularly likely tohave difficulty with learning to read in the primary grades are thosewho begin school with less prior knowledge and skill in relevantdomains, most notably general verbal abilities, the ability to attendto the sounds of language as distinct from its meaning, familiaritywith the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading, and letter knowl-edge. Children from poor neighborhoods, children with limitedproficiency in English, children with hearing impairments, childrenwith preschool language impairments, and children whose parentshad difficulty learning to read are particularly at risk of arriving atschool with weaknesses in these areas and hence of falling behindfrom the outset.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The critical importance of providing excellent reading instruc-tion to all children is at the heart of the committee's recommenda-tions. Accordingly, our central recommendation characterizes thenature of good primary reading instruction. We also recognize thatexcellent instruction is most effective when children arrive in firstgrade motivated for literacy and with the necessary linguistic, cogni-tive, and early literacy skills. We therefore recommend attention to

6D


ensuring high-quality preschool and kindergarten environments aswell. We acknowledge that excellent instruction in the primarygrades and optimal environments in preschool and kindergarten re-quire teachers who are well prepared, highly knowledgeable, andreceiving ongoing support. Excellent instruction may be possibleonly if schools are organized in optimal ways; if facilities, curriculummaterials, and support services function adequately; and if children'shome languages are taken into account in designing instruction. Wetherefore make recommendations addressing these issues. (The com-plete text of all the committee's recommendations appears in Chap-ter 10.)

Literacy Instruction in First Through Third Grades

Given the centrality of excellent instruction to the prevention ofreading difficulties, the committee strongly recommends attention inevery primary-grade classroom to the full array of early readingaccomplishments: the alphabetic principle, reading sight words,reading words by mapping speech sounds to parts of words, achiev-ing fluency, and comprehension. Getting started in alphabetic read-ing depends critically on mapping the letters and spellings of wordsonto the speech units that they represent; failure to master wordrecognition can impede text comprehension. Explicit instructionthat directs children's attention to the sound structure of oral lan-guage and to the connections between speech sounds and spellingsassists children who have not grasped the alphabetic principle orwho do not apply it productively when they encounter unfamiliarprinted words.

Comprehension difficulties can be prevented by actively buildingcomprehension skills as well as linguistic and conceptual knowledge,beginning in the earliest grades. Comprehension can be enhancedthrough instruction focused on concept and vocabulary growth andbackground knowledge, instruction about the syntax and rhetoricalstructures of written language, and direct instruction about compre-hension strategies such as summarizing, predicting, and monitoring.Comprehension also takes practice, which is gained by reading inde-pendently, by reading in pairs or groups, and by being read aloud to.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7

We recommend that first through third grade curricula includethe following components:

Beginning readers need explicit instruction and practice thatlead to an appreciation that spoken words are made up of smallerunits of sounds, familiarity with spelling-sound correspondences andcommon spelling conventions and their use in identifying printedwords, "sight" recognition of frequent words, and independent read-ing, including reading aloud. Fluency should be promoted throughpractice with a wide variety of well-written and engaging texts at thechild's own comfortable reading level.

Children who have started to read independently, typicallysecond graders and above, should be encouraged to sound out andconfirm the identities of visually unfamiliar words they encounter inthe course of reading meaningful texts, recognizing words primarilythrough attention to their letter-sound relationships. Although con-text and pictures can be used as a tool to monitor word recognition,children should not be taught to use them to substitute for informa-tion provided by the letters in the word.

Because the ability to obtain meaning from print depends sostrongly on the development of word recognition accuracy and read-ing fluency, both of the latter should be regularly assessed in theclassroom, permitting timely and effective instructional responsewhen difficulty or delay is apparent.

Beginning in the earliest grades, instruction should promotecomprehension by actively building linguistic and conceptual knowl-edge in a rich variety of domains, as well as through direct instruc-tion about comprehension strategies such as summarizing the mainidea, predicting events and outcomes of upcoming text, drawinginferences, and monitoring for coherence and misunderstandings.This instruction can take place while adults read to students or whenstudents read themselves.

Once children learn some letters, they should be encouragedto write them, to use them to begin writing words or parts of words,and to use words to begin writing sentences. Instruction should bedesigned with the understanding that the use of invented spelling isnot in conflict with teaching correct spelling. Beginning writing with


invented spelling can be helpful for developing understanding of theidentity and segmentation of speech sounds and sound-spelling rela-tionships. Conventionally correct spelling should be developedthrough focused instruction and practice. Primary-grade childrenshould be expected to spell previously studied words and spellingpatterns correctly in their final writing products. Writing shouldtake place regularly and frequently to encourage children to becomemore comfortable and familiar with it.

Throughout the early grades, time, materials, and resourcesshould be provided with two goals: (a) to support daily independentreading of texts selected to be of particular interest for the individualstudent, and beneath the individual student's frustration level, inorder to consolidate the student's capacity for independent readingand (b) to support daily assisted or supported reading and rereadingof texts that are slightly more difficult in wording or in linguistic,rhetorical, or conceptual structure in order to promote advances inthe student's capabilities.

Throughout the early grades, schools should promote inde-pendent reading outside school by such means as daily at-homereading assignments and expectations, summer reading lists, encour-aging parent involvement, and by working with community groups,including public librarians, who share this goal.

Promoting Literacy Development in Preschool and Kindergarten

It is clear from the research that the process of learning to read isa lengthy one that begins very early in life. Given the importanceidentified in the research literature of starting school motivated toread and with the prerequisite language and early literacy skills, thecommittee recommends that all children, especially those at risk forreading difficulties, should have access to early childhood environ-ments that promote language and literacy growth and that address avariety of skills that have been identified as predictors of later read-ing achievement. Preschools and other group care settings for youngchildren often provide relatively impoverished language and literacyenvironments, in particular those available to families with limitedeconomic resources. As ever more young children are entering group

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9

care settings pursuant to expectations that their mothers will join thework force, it becomes critical that the preschool opportunities avail-able to lower-income families be designed in ways that support lan-guage and literacy development.

Preschool programs, even those designed specifically as interven-tions for children at risk of reading difficulties, should be designed toprovide optimal support for cognitive, language, and social develop-ment, within this broad focus. However, ample attention should bepaid to skills that are known to predict future reading achievement,especially those for which a causal role has been demonstrated. Simi-larly, and for the same reasons, kindergarten instruction should bedesigned to stimulate verbal interaction; to enrich children's vocabu-laries; to encourage talk about books; to provide practice with thesound structure of words; to develop knowledge about print, includ-ing the production and recognition of letters; and to generate famil-iarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading.

Children who will probably need additional support for earlylanguage and literacy development should receive it as early as pos-sible. Pediatricians, social workers, speech-language therapists, andother preschool practitioners should receive research-based guide-lines to assist them to be alert for signs that children are havingdifficulties acquiring early language and literacy skills. Parents, rela-tives, neighbors, and friends can also play a role in identifying chil-dren who need assistance. Through adult education programs, pub-lic service media, instructional videos provided by pediatricians, andother means, parents can be informed about what skills and knowl-edge children should be acquiring at young ages, and about what todo and where to turn if there is concern that a child's developmentmay be lagging behind in some respects.

Education and Professional Development for All Involved inLiteracy Instruction

The critical importance of the teacher in the prevention of read-ing difficulties must be recognized, and efforts should be made toprovide all teachers with adequate knowledge about reading and theknowledge and skill to teach reading or its developmental precur-

25


sors. It is imperative that teachers at all grade levels understand thecourse of literacy development and the role of instruction in optimiz-ing literacy development.

Preschool teachers represent an important, and largely under-utilized, resource in promoting literacy by supporting rich languageand emergent literacy skills. Early childhood educators should nottry to replicate the formal reading instruction provided in schools.

The preschool and primary school teacher's knowledge and ex-perience, as well as the support provided to the teacher, are centralto achieving the goal of primary prevention of reading difficulties.Each of these may vary according to where the teacher is in his or herprofessional development. A critical component in the preparationof pre-service teachers is supervised, relevant, clinical experienceproviding ongoing guidance and feedback, so they develop the abil-ity to integrate and apply their knowledge in practice.

Teachers need to be knowledgeable about the research founda-tions of reading. Collaborative support by the teacher preparationinstitution and the field placement is essential. A critical componentfor novice teachers is the support of mentors who have demonstratedrecords of success in teaching reading.

Professional development should not be conceived as somethingthat ends with graduation from a teacher preparation program, noras something that happens primarily in graduate classrooms or evenduring in-service activities. Rather, ongoing support from colleaguesand specialists, as well as regular opportunities for self-examinationand reflection, are critical components of the career-long develop-ment of excellent teachers.

Teaching Reading to Speakers of Other Languages

Schools have the responsibility to accommodate the linguisticneeds of students with limited proficiency in English. Precisely howto do this is difficult to prescribe, because students' abilities andneeds vary greatly, as do the capacities of different communities tosupport their literacy development. The committee recommends thefollowing guidelines for decision making:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11

If language-minority children arrive at school with no profi-ciency in English but speaking a language for which there are in-structional guides, learning materials, and locally available profi-cient teachers, these children should be taught how to read in theirnative language while acquiring proficiency in spoken English andthen subsequently taught to extend their skills to reading in English.

If language-minority children arrive at school with no profi-ciency in English but speak a language for which the above condi-tions cannot be met and for which there are insufficient numbers ofchildren to justify the development of the local community to meetsuch conditions, the instructional priority should be to develop thechildren's proficiency in spoken English. Although print materialsmay be used to develop understanding of English speech sounds,vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading in-struction is appropriate until an adequate level of proficiency inspoken English has been achieved.

Ensuring Adequate Resources to Meet Children's Needs

To be effective, schools with large numbers of children at risk forreading difficulties need rich resourcesmanageable class sizes andstudent-teacher ratios, high-quality instructional materials in suffi-cient quantity, good school libraries, and pleasant physical environ-ments. Achieving this may require extra resources for schools thatserve a disproportionate number of high-risk children.

Even in schools in which a large percentage of the students arenot achieving at a satisfactory level, a well-designed classroom read-ing program, delivered by an experienced and competent teacher,may be successful in bringing most students to grade level or aboveduring the primary grades. However, achieving and sustaining radi-cal gains is often difficult when improvements are introduced on aclassroom-by-classroom basis. In a situation of school-wide poorperformance, school restructuring should be considered as a vehiclefor preventing reading difficulties. Ongoing professional develop-ment for teachers is typically a component of successful school re-structuring efforts.

27


Addressing the Needs of Children withPersistent Reading Difficulties

Even with excellent instruction in the early grades, some childrenfail to make satisfactory progress in reading. Such children willrequire supplementary services, ideally from a reading specialist whoprovides individual or small-group intensive instruction that is coor-dinated with high-quality instruction from the classroom teacher.Children who are having difficulty learning to read do not, as a rule,require qualitatively different instruction from children who are "get-ting it." Instead, they more often need application of the sameprinciples by someone who can apply them expertly to individualchildren who are having difficulty for one reason or another.

Schools that lack or have abandoned reading specialist positionsneed to reexamine their needs for such specialists to ensure that well-trained staff are available for intervention with children and forongoing support to classroom teachers. Reading specialists and otherspecialist roles need to be defined so that two-way communication isrequired between specialists and classroom teachers about the needsof all children at risk of or experiencing reading difficulties. Coordi-nation is needed at the instructional level so that intervention fromspecialists coordinates with and supports classroom instruction.Schools that have reading specialists as well as special educatorsneed to coordinate the roles of these specialists. Schools need toensure that all the specialists engaged in child study or individualizededucational program (IEP) meetings for special education placement,early childhood intervention, out-of-classroom interventions, or in-classroom support are well informed about research in reading de-velopment and the prevention of reading difficulties.

Although volunteer tutors can provide valuable practice andmotivational support for children learning to read, they should notbe expected either to provide primary reading instruction or to in-struct children with serious reading problems.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 13

CONCLUSION

Most reading difficulties can be prevented. There is much workto be done, however, that requires the aggressive deployment of theinformation currently available, which is distilled in this report. Inaddition, many questions remain unanswered concerning readingdevelopment, some of which we address in our recommendations forresearch. While science continues to discover more about how chil-dren learn to read and how teachers and others can help them, theknowledge currently available can equip our society to promotehigher levels of literacy for large numbers of American schoolchil-dren. The committee's hope is that the recommendations containedin this report will provide direction for the first important steps.

PART I

Introduction to Reading

Reading is a complex developmental challenge that we know tobe intertwined with many other developmental accomplishments:attention, memory, language, and motivation, for example. Readingis not only a cognitive psycholinguistic activity but also a socialactivity.

Being a good reader in English means that a child has gained afunctional knowledge of the principles of the English alphabetic writ-ing system. Young children gain functional knowledge of the parts,products, and uses of the writing system from their ability to attendto and analyze the external sound structure of spoken words. Un-derstanding the basic alphabetic principle requires an awarenessthat spoken language can be analyzed into strings of separable words,and words, in turn, into sequences of syllables and phonemes withinsyllables.

Beyond knowledge about how the English writing system works,though, there is a point in a child's growth when we expect "realreading" to start. Children are expected, without help, to read someunfamiliar texts, relying on the print and drawing meaning from it.There are many reasons why children have difficulty learning toread. These issues and problems led to the initiation of this study.

15

30


Even though quite accurate estimates can be made on the basis ofknown risk factors, it is still difficult to predict precisely whichyoung children will have difficulty learning to read. We thereforepropose that prevention efforts must reach all children. To wait toinitiate treatment until the child has been diagnosed with a specificdisability is too late. However, we can begin treatment of conditionsassociated with reading problems, for example, hearing impairments.

Ensuring success in reading requires different levels of effort fordifferent segments of the population. The prevention and interven-tion efforts described in this report can be thought of in terms ofthree levels (Caplan and Grunebaum, 1967, cited in Simeonsson,1994; Pianta, 1990; and Needlman, 1997). Primary prevention isconcerned with reducing the number of new cases (incidence) of anidentified condition or problem in the population, such as ensuringthat all children attend schools in which instruction is coherent andcompetent.

Secondary prevention is concerned with reducing the number ofexisting cases (prevalence) of an identified condition or problem inthe population. Secondary prevention likewise involves the promo-tion of compensatory skills and behaviors. Children who are grow-ing up in poverty, for example, may need excellent, enriched pre-school environments or schools that address their particular learningneeds with highly effective and focused instruction. The extra effortis focused on children at higher risk of developing reading difficultiesbut before any serious, long-term deficit has emerged.

Tertiary prevention is concerned with reducing the complica-tions associated with identified problem, or conditions. Programs,strategies, and interventions at this level have an explicit remedial orrehabilitative focus. If children demonstrate inadequate progressunder secondary prevention conditions, they may need instructionthat is specially designed and supplementalspecial education, tu-toring from a reading specialistto their current instruction.

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1

Introduction

Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to readis highly valued and important for social and economic advance-ment. Of course, most children learn to read fairly well. In fact, asmall number learn it on their own, with no formal instruction,before school entry (Anbar, 1986; Backman, 1983; Bissex, 1980;Jackson, 1991; Jackson et al., 1988). A larger percentage learn iteasily, quickly, and efficiently once exposed to formal instruction.

SOCIETAL CHALLENGES

Parents, educators, community leaders, and researchers identifyclear and specific worries concerning how well children are learningto read in this country. The issues they raise are the focus of thisreport:

1. Large numbers of school-age children, including childrenfrom all social classes, have significant difficulties in learning toread.

2. Failure to learn to read adequately for continued school suc-cess is much more likely among poor children, among nonwhite

17

3


children, and among nonnative speakers of English. Achieving edu-cational equality requires an understanding of why these disparitiesexist and efforts to redress them.

3. An increasing proportion of children in American schools,particularly in certain school systems, are learning disabled, withmost of the children identified as such because of difficulties inlearning to read.

4. Even as federal and state governments and local communitiesinvest at higher levels in early childhood education for children withspecial needs and for those from families living in poverty, theseinvestments are often made without specific planning to addressearly literacy needs and sustain the investment.

5. A significant federal investment in providing bilingual educa-tion programs for nonnative speakers of English has not beenmatched by attention to the best methods for teaching reading inEnglish to nonnative speakers or to native speakers of nonstandarddialects.

6. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)provides accommodations to children and to workers who have read-ing disabilities. In order to provide full access for the individualsinvolved, these accommodations should reflect scientific knowledgeabout the acquisition of reading and the effects of having a readingdifficulty.

7. The debate about reading development and reading instruc-tion has been persistent and heated, often obscuring the very realgains in knowledge of the reading process that have occurred.

In this report, we are most concerned with the children in thiscountry whose educational careers are imperiled because they do notread well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demandsof an increasingly competitive economy. Current difficulties in read-ing largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from de-clining absolute levels of literacy (Stedman and Kaestle, 1987). In atechnological society, the demands for higher literacy are constantlyincreasing, creating ever more grievous consequences for those whofall short and contributing to the widening economic disparities inour society (Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996). These economic dispari-

INTRODUCTION 19

ties often translate into disparities in educational resources, whichthen have the self-reinforcing effect of further exacerbating economicdisparities. Although the gap in reading performance between educa-tional haves and have-nots has shrunk over the last 50 years, it is stillunacceptably large, and in recent years it has not shrunk further(National Academy of Education, 1996). These rich-get-richer andpoor-get-poorer economic effects compound the difficulties facingeducational policy makers, and they must be addressed if we are toconfront the full scope of inadequate literacy attainment (seeBronfenbrenner et al., 1996).

Despite the many ways in which American schools have pro-gressed and improved over the last half century (see, for example,Berliner and Biddle, 1995), there is little reason for complacency.Clear and worrisome problems have to do specifically with children'ssuccess in learning to read and our ability to teach reading to them.There are many reasons for these educational problemsnone ofwhich is simple. These issues and problems led to the initiation ofthis study and are the focus of this report.

The many children who succeed in reading are in classrooms thatdisplay a wide range of possible approaches to instruction. In mak-ing recommendations about instruction, one of the challenges facingthe committee is the difficult-to-deal-with fact that many childrenwill learn to read in almost any classroom, with almost any instruc-tional emphasis. Nonetheless, some children, in particular childrenfrom poor, minority, or non-English-speaking families and childrenwho have innate predispositions for reading difficulties, need thesupport of high-quality preschool and school environments and ofexcellent primary instruction to be sure of reading success. Weattempt to identify the characteristics of the preschool and schoolenvironments that will be effective for such children.

The Challenge of a Technological Society

Although children have been taught to read for many centuries,only in this centuryand until recently only in some countrieshasthere been widespread expectation that literacy skills should be uni-versal. Under current conditions, in many "literate" societies, 40 to

34


60 percent of the population have achieved literacy; today in theUnited States, we expect 100 percent of the population to be literate.Furthermore, the definition of full-fledged literacy has shifted overthe last century with increased distribution of technology, with thedevelopment of communication across distances, and with the pro-liferation of large-scale economic enterprises (Kaestle, 1991; Miller,1988; Weber, 1993). To be employable in the modern economy,high school graduates need to be more than merely literate. Theymust be able to read challenging material, to perform sophisticatedcalculations, and to solve problems independently (Murnane andLevy, 1993). The demands are far greater than those placed on thevast majority of schooled literate individuals a quarter-century ago.

Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and HighSchool and Beyond, the two most comprehensive longitudinal as-sessments of U.S. students' attitudes and achievements, indicate that,from 1972 through 1994 (the earliest and most recently availabledata), high school students most often identified two life values as"very important" (see National Center for Educational Statistics,1995:403). "Finding steady work" was consistently highly valuedby over 80 percent of male and female seniors over the 20 years ofmeasurement and was seen as "very important" by nearly 90 percentof the 1992 seniorsthe highest scores on this measure in its 20-yearhistory. "Being successful in work" was also consistently valued asvery important by over 80 percent of seniors over the 20-year periodand approached 90 percent in 1992.

The pragmatic goals stated by students amount to "get and holda good job." Who is able to do that? In 1993, the percentage of U.S.citizens age 25 and older who were college graduates and unem-ployed was 2.6 percent (U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Em-ployment and Unemployment Statistics, quoted in National Centerfor Education Statistics, 1995:401). By contrast, the unemploymentrate for high school graduates with no college was twice as high, 5.4percent, and for persons with less than a high school education theunemployment rate was 9.8 percent, over three times higher. AnOctober 1994 survey of 1993-1994 high school graduates and drop-outs found that fewer than 50 percent of the dropouts were holding

3 "-

INTRODUCTION 21

jobs (U.S. Department of Labor, 1995; quoted in National Centerfor Education Statistics, 1995:401).

One researcher found that, controlling for inflation, the meanincome of U.S. male high school dropouts ages 25 to 34 has de-creased by over 50 percent between 1973 and 1995 (Stringfield,1995, 1997). By contrast, the mean incomes of young male highschool graduates dropped by about one-third, and those of collegegraduates by 20 percent in the 1970s and then stabilized. Amongthe six major demographic groups (males and females who are black,white, or Hispanic), the lowest average income among college gradu-ates was higher than the highest group of high school graduates.

Academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can bepredicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone's readingskill at the end of grade 3 (for reviews, see Slavin et al., 1994). Aperson who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by the end ofthird grade is quite unlikely to graduate from high school. Only ageneration ago, this did not matter so much, because the long-termeconomic effects of not becoming a good reader and not graduatingfrom high school were less severe. Perhaps not surprisingly, whenteachers are asked about the most important goal for education,over half of elementary school teachers chose "building basic lit-eracy skills" (National Center for Education Statistics Schools andStaffing Survey, 1990-1991, quoted in National Center for Educa-tion Statistics, 1995:31).

The Special Challenge of Learning to Read English

Learning to read poses real challenges, even to children who willeventually become good readers. Furthermore, although every writ-ing system has its own complexities, English presents a relativelylarge challenge, even among alphabetic languages. Learning theprinciples of a syllabic system, like the Japanese katakana, is quitestraightforward, since the units representedsyllablesare pro-nounceable and psychologically real, even to young children. Suchsystems are, however, feasible only in languages with few possiblesyllable types; the hiragana syllabary represents spoken Japanesewith 46 characters, supplemented with a set of diacritics (Daniels


and Bright, 1996). Spoken English has approximately 5,000 differ-ent possible syllables; instead of representing each one with a symbolin the writing system, written English relies on an alphabetic systemthat represents the parts that make up a spoken syllable, rather thanrepresenting the syllable as a unit.

An alphabetic system poses a challenge to the beginning reader,because the units represented graphically by letters of the alphabetare referentially meaningless and phonologically abstract. For ex-ample, there are three sounds represented by three letters in the word"but," but each sound alone does not refer to anything, and only themiddle sound can really be pronounced in isolation; when we try tosay the first or last consonant of the word all by itself, we have toadd a vowel to make it a pronounceable entity (see Box 1-1).

Once the learner of written English gets the basic idea that lettersrepresent the small sound units within spoken and heard words,called phonemes, the system has many advantages: a much morelimited set of graphemic symbols is needed than in either syllabic(like Japanese) or morphosyllabic (like Chinese) systems; strategies

BOX 1-1Some Definitions

What is morphology?The study of the structure and form of words in language or a language,including inflection, derivation, and the formation of compounds.

What is orthography?A method of representing spoken language by letters and diacritics; spell-

ing.

What is phonology?The study of speech structure in language (or a particular language) that

includes both the patterns of basic speech units (phonemes) and the tacit

rules of pronunciation.

What is a syllable?A unit of spoken language that can be spoken. In English, a syllable canconsist of a vowel sound alone or a vowel sound with one or more conso-nant sounds preceding and following.

0

INTRODUCTION 23

for sounding out unfamiliar strings and spelling novel words areavailable; and subsequences, such as prefixes and suffixes, are en-countered with enough frequency for the reader to recognize themautomatically.

Alphabetic systems of writing vary in the degree to which theyare designed to represent the surface sounds of words. Some lan-guages, such as Spanish, spell all words as they sound, even thoughthis can cause two closely related words to be spelled very differ-ently. Writing systems that compromise phonological representa-tions in order to reflect morphological information are referred to asdeep orthographies. In English, rather than preserving one-letter-to-one-sound correspondences, we preserve the spelling, even if thatmeans a particular letter spells several different sounds. For ex-ample, the last letter pronounced "k" in the written word "electric"represents quite different sounds in the words "electricity" and "elec-trician," indicating the morphological relation among the words butmaking the sound-symbol relationships more difficult to fathom.

The deep orthography of English is further complicated by theretention of many historical spellings, despite changes in pronuncia-tion that render the spellings opaque. The "gh" in "night" and"neighborhood" represents a consonant that has long since disap-peared from spoken English. The "ph" in "morphology" and "phi-losophy" is useful in signaling the Greek etymology of those wordsbut represents a complication of the pattern of sound-symbol corre-spondences that has been abandoned in Spanish, German, and manyother languages that also retain Greek-origin vocabulary items. En-glish can present a challenge for a learner who expects to find eachletter always linked to just one sound.

SOURCES OF READING DIFFICULTIES

Reading problems are found among every group and in everyprimary classroom, although some children with certain demo-graphic characteristics are at greater risk of reading difficulties thanothers. Precisely how and why this happens has not been fullyunderstood. In some cases, the sources of these reading difficulties


are relatively clear, such as biological deficits that make the process-ing of sound-symbol relationships difficult; in other cases, the sourceis experiential such as poor reading instruction.

Biological Deficits

Neuroscience research on reading has expanded understandingof the reading process (Shaywitz, 1996). For example, researchershave now been able to establish a tentative architecture for the com-ponent processes of reading (Shaywitz et al., 1998; Shaywitz, 1996).All reading difficulties, whatever their primary etiology, must ex-press themselves through alterations of the brain systems responsiblefor word identification and comprehension. Even in disadvantagedor other high-risk populations, many children do learn to read, andsome easily and others with great difficulty. This suggests that, in allpopulations, reading ability occurs along a continuum, and biologi-cal factors are influenced by, and interact with, a reader's experi-ences. The findings of an anomalous brain system say little aboutthe possibility for change, for remediation, or for response to treat-ment. It is well known that, particularly in children, neural systemsare plastic and responsive to changed input.

Cognitive studies of reading have identified phonological pro-cessing as crucial to skillful reading, and so it seems logical to sus-pect that poor readers may have phonological processing problems.One line of research has looked at phonological processing problemsthat can be attributed to the underdevelopment or disruption ofspecific brain systems.

Genetic factors have also been implicated in some reading dis-abilities, in studies both of family occurrence (Pennington, 1989;Scarborough, 1989) and of twins (Olson et al., 1994). Differences inbrain function and behavior associated with reading difficulty mayarise from environmental and/or genetic factors. The relative contri-butions of these two factors to a deficit in reading (children belowthe local 10th percentile) have been assessed in readers with normal-range intelligence (above 90 on verbal or performance IQ) and ap-parent educational opportunity (their first language was English andthey had regularly attended schools that were at or above national

3r

INTRODUCTION 25

norms in reading). This research has provided evidence for stronggenetic influences on many of these children's deficits in reading(De Fries and Alarcon, 1996) and in related phonological processes(Olson et al., 1989). Recent DNA studies have found evidence for alink between some cases of reading disability and inheritance of agene or genes on the short arm of chromosome 6 (Cardon et al.,1994; Grigorenko et al., 1997).

It is important to emphasize that evidence for genetic influenceon reading difficulty in the selected population described above doesnot imply genetic influences on reading differences between groupsfor which there are confounding environmental differences. Suchgroup differences may include socioeconomic status, English as asecond language, and other cultural factors. It is also important toemphasize that evidence for genetic influence and anomalous braindevelopment does not mean that a child is condemned to failure inreading. Brain and behavioral development are always based on theinteraction between genetic and environmental influences. The ge-netic and neurobiological evidence does suggest why learning to readmay be particularly difficult for some children and why they mayrequire extraordinary instructional support in reading and relatedphonological processes.

Instructional Influences

A large number of students who should be capable of readingably given adequate instruction are not doing so, suggesting that theinstruction available to them is not appropriate. As Carroll (1963)noted more than three decades ago, if the instruction provided by aschool is ineffective or insufficient, many children will have difficultylearning to read (unless additional instruction is provided in thehome or elsewhere).

Reading difficulties that arise when the design of regular class-room curriculum, or its delivery, is flawed are sometimes termed"curriculum casualties" (Gickling and Thompson, 1985; Simmonsand Kame'enui, in press). Consider an example from a first-gradeclassroom in the early part of the school year. Worksheets werebeing used to practice segmentation and blending of words to facili-

46


tate word recognition. Each worksheet had a key word, with onepart of it designated the "chunk" that was alleged to have the samespelling-sound pattern in other words; these other words were listedon the sheet. One worksheet had the word "love" and the chunk"ove." Among the other words listed on the sheet, some did indicatethe pattern ("glove," "above," "dove"), but others simply do notwork as the sheet suggests they should ("Rover," "stove," and "wo-ven"). In lesson plans and instructional activities, such mistakesoccur in the accuracy and clarity of the information being taught.

When this occurs consistently, a substantial proportion of stu-dents in the classroom are likely to exhibit low achievement (al-though some students are likely to progress adequately in spite of theimpoverished learning situation). If low-quality instruction is con-fined to one particular teacher, children's progress may be impededfor the year spent in that classroom, but they may overcome thissetback when exposed to more adequate teaching in subsequentyears. There is evidence, however, that poor instruction in firstgrade may have long-term effects. Children who have poor instruc-tion in the first year are more seriously harmed by the bad earlylearning experience and tend to do poorly in schooling across theyears (Pianta, 1990).

In some schools, however, the problem is more pervasive, suchthat low student achievement is schoolwide and persistent. Some-times the instructional deficiency can be traced to lack of an appro-priate curriculum. More often, a host of conditions occur togetherto contribute to the risk imposed by poor schooling: low expecta-tions for success on the part of the faculty and administration of theschool, which may translate into a slow-paced, undemanding cur-riculum; teachers who are poorly trained in effective methods forteaching beginning readers; the unavailability of books and othermaterials; noisy and crowded classrooms; and so forth.

It is regrettable that schools with these detrimental characteris-tics continue to exist anywhere in the United States; since theseschools often exist in low-income areas, where resources forchildren's out-of-school learning are limited, the effects can be verydetrimental to students' probabilities of becoming skilled readers(Kozol, 1991; Puma et al., 1997; Natriello et al., 1990). Attending a

4 5_

INTRODUCTION 27

school in which low achievement is pervasive and chronic, in and ofitself, clearly places a child at risk for reading difficulty. Even withina school that serves most of its students well, an instructional basisfor poor reading achievement is possible. This is almost never con-sidered, however, when a child is referred for evaluation of a sus-pected reading difficulty. Evidence from case study evaluations ofchildren referred for special education indicate that instructionalhistories of the children are not seriously considered (Klenk andPalincsar, 1996). Rather, when teachers refer students for specialservices, the "search for pathology" begins and assessment focusedon the child continues until some explanatory factor is unearthedthat could account for the observed difficulty in reading (Sarasonand Doris, 1979).

In sum, a variety of detrimental school practices may place chil-dren at risk for poorer achievement in reading than they might oth-erwise attain. Interventions geared at improving beginning readinginstruction, rehabilitating substandard schools, and ensuring ad-equate teacher preparation are discussed in subsequent chapters.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF READING DIFFICULTIES

A major source of urgency in addressing reading difficulties de-rives from their distribution in our society. Children from poorfamilies, children of African American and Hispanic descent, andchildren attending urban schools are at much greater risk of poorreading outcomes than are middle-class, European-American, andsuburban children. Studying these demographic disparities can helpus identify groups that should be targeted for special preventionefforts. Furthermore, examining the literacy development of chil-dren in these higher-risk groups can help us understand somethingabout the course of literacy development and the array of conditionsthat must be in place to ensure that it proceeds well.

One characteristic of minority populations that has been offeredas an explanation for their higher risk of reading difficulties is theuse of nonstandard varieties of English or limited proficiency inEnglish. Speaking a nonstandard variety of English can impede theeasy acquisition of English literacy by introducing greater deviations

42


in the representation of sounds, making it hard to develop sound-symbol links. Learning English spelling is challenging enough forspeakers of standard mainstream English; these challenges are height-ened for some children by a number of phonological and grammati-cal features of social dialects that make the relation of sound tospelling even more indirect (see Chapter 6).

The number of children who speak other languages and havelimited proficiency in English in U.S. schools has risen dramaticallyover the past two decades and continues to grow. Although the sizeof the general school population has increased only slightly, thenumber of students acquiring English as a second language grew by85 percent nationwide between 1985 and 1992, from fewer than 1.5million to almost 2.7 million (Goldenberg, 1996). These studentsnow make up approximately 5.5 percent of the population of publicschool students in the United States; over half (53 percent) of thesestudents are concentrated in grades K-4. Eight percent of kindergar-ten children speak a native language other than English and areEnglish-language learners (August and Hakuta, 1997).

Non-English-speaking students, like nonstandard dialect speak-ers, tend to come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and to at-tend schools with disproportionately high numbers of children inpoverty, both of which are known risk factors (see Chapter 4). His-panic students in the United States, who constitute the largest groupof limited-English-proficient students by far, are particularly at riskfor reading difficulties. Despite the group's progress in achievementover the past 15 to 20 years, they are about twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be reading below average for their age. Achieve-ment gaps in all academic areas between whites and Hispanics,whether they are U.S. or foreign born, appear early and persistthroughout their school careers (Kao and Tienda, 1995).

One obvious reason for these achievement differences is the lan-guage difference itself. Being taught and tested in English would, ofcourse, put students with limited English proficiency at a disadvan-tage. These children might not have any reading difficulty at all ifthey were taught and tested in the language in which they are profi-cient. Indeed, there is evidence from research in bilingual educationthat learning to read in one's native languagethus offsetting the

43

INTRODUCTION 29

obstacle presented by limited proficiency in Englishcan lead tosuperior achievement (Legarreta, 1979; Ramirez et al., 1991). Thisfield is highly contentious and politicized, however, and there is alack of clear consensus about the advantages and disadvantages ofacademic instruction in the primary language in contrast to earlyand intensive exposure to English (August and Hakuta, 1997; Rosselland Baker, 1996).

In any event, limited proficiency in English does not, in and ofitself, appear to be entirely responsible for the low reading achieve-ment of these students. Even when taught and tested in Spanish, asthe theory and practice of bilingual education dictates, many Span-ish-speaking Hispanic students in the United States still demonstratelow levels of reading attainment (Escamilla, 1994; Gersten andWoodward, 1995; Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1991; Slavin andMadden, 1995). This suggests that factors other than lack of En-glish proficiency may also contribute to these children's reading dif-ficulties.

One such factor is cultural differences, that is, the mismatchbetween the schools and the families in definitions of literacy, inteaching practices, and in defined roles for parents versus teachers(e.g., Jacob and Jordan, 1987; Tharp, 1989); these differences cancreate obstacles to children's learning to read in school. Otherscontend that primary cultural differences matter far less than do"secondary cultural discontinuities," such as low motivation andlow educational aspirations that are the result of discrimination andlimited social and economic opportunities for certain minority groups(Ogbu, 1974, 1982). Still others claim that high motivation andeducational aspirations can and do coexist with low achievement(e.g., Labov et al., 1968, working in the African American commu-nity; Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1995, in the Hispanic community)and that other factors must therefore explain the differential achieve-ment of culturally diverse groups.

Literacy is positively valued by adults in minority communities,and the positive views are often brought to school by young children(Nettles, 1997). Nonetheless, the ways that reading is used by adultsand children varies across families from different cultural groups inways that may influence children's participation in literacy activities

4I


in school, as Heath (1983) found. And adults in some communitiesmay see very few functional roles for literacy, so that they will beunlikely to provide conditions in the home that are conducive tochildren's acquisition of reading and writing skills (Purcell-Gates,1991, 1996). The implications of these various views for preventionand intervention efforts are discussed in Part III of this volume.

It is difficult to distinguish the risk associated with minoritystatus and not speaking English from the risk associated with lowersocioeconomic status (SES). Studying the differential experiences ofchildren in middle- and lower-class families can illuminate the fac-tors that affect the development of literacy and thus contribute to thedesign of prevention and intervention efforts.

The most extensive studies of SES differences have been con-ducted in Britain. Stubbs (1980) found a much lower percentage ofpoor readers with higher (7.5 percent) than with lower SES (26.9percent). Some have suggested that SES differences in readingachievement are actually a result of differences in the quality ofschooling; that is, lower-SES children tend to go to inferior schools,and therefore their achievement is lower because of inferior educa-tional opportunities (Cook, 1991). However, a recent study byAlexander and Entwisle (1996) appears to demonstrate that it isduring nonschool timebefore they start and during the summermonthsthat low-SES children fall academically behind their higher-SES peers and get progressively further behind. During the schoolmonths (at least through elementary school) the rate of progress isvirtually identical for high- and low-SES children.

Regardless of the specific explanation, differences in literacyachievement among children as a result of socioeconomic status arepronounced. Thirty years ago Coleman et al. (1966) and Moynihan(1965) reported that the educational deficit of children from low-income families was present at school entry and increased with eachyear they stayed in school. Evidence of SES differences in readingachievement has continued to accumulate (National Assessment ofEducational Progress, 1981, 1995). Reading achievement of chil-dren in affluent suburban schools is significantly and consistentlyhigher than that of children in "disadvantaged" urban schools (e.g.,

4F-'

INTRODUCTION 31

NAEP, 1994, 1995; White, 1982; Hart and Risley, 1995). An im-portant conceptual distinction was made by White (1982) in agroundbreaking meta-analysis. White discovered that, at the indi-vidual level, SES is related to achievement only very modestly. How-ever, at the aggregate level, that is, when measured as a school orcommunity characteristic, the effects of SES are much more pro-nounced. A low-SES child in a generally moderate or higher-SESschool or community is far less at risk than an entire school orcommunity of low-SES children.

The existence of SES differences in reading outcomes offers byitself little information about the specific experiences or activitiesthat influence literacy development at home. Indeed, a look at socio-economic factors alone can do no more than nominate the elementsthat differ between middle-class and lower-class homes. Researchershave tried to identify the specific familial interactions that can ac-count for social class differences, as well as describe those interac-tions around literacy that do occur in low-income homes. For ex-ample, Baker et al. (1995) compared opportunities for informalliteracy learning among preschoolers in the homes of middle-incomeand low-income urban families. They found that children frommiddle-income homes had greater opportunities for informal literacylearning than children of low-income homes. Low-income parents,particularly African-American parents, reported more reading skillspractice and homework (e.g., flash cards, letter practice) with theirkindergarten-age children than did middle-income parents. Middle-income parents reported only slightly more joint book reading withtheir children than did low-income families. But these middle-in-come parents reported more play with print and more independentreading by children. Among the middle-class families in this study,90 percent reported that their child visited the library at least once amonth, whereas only 43 percent of the low-income families reportedsuch visits. The findings of Baker et al. that low-income homes typi-cally do offer opportunities for literacy practice, though perhaps of adifferent nature from middle-class homes, have been confirmed inethnographic work by researchers such as Tea le (1986), Taylor andDorsey-Gaines (1988), Taylor and Strickland (1986), Gadsden(1993), Delgado-Gaitan (1990), and Goldenberg et al. (1992).

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

Charge to the Committee

The Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties inYoung Children has conducted a study of the effectiveness of inter-ventions for young children who are at risk of having problems inlearning to read. It was carried out at the request of the U.S. Depart-ment of Education's Office of Special Education Programs and itsOffice of Educational Research and Improvement (Early ChildhoodInstitute) and the National Institute on Child Health and HumanDevelopment (Human Learning and Behavior Branch). The spon-sors requested that the study address young children who are at -riskfor reading difficulties, within the context of reading acquisition forall children. The scope included children from birth through grade3, in special and regular education settings. The project had threegoals: (1) to comprehend a rich research base; (2) to translate theresearch findings into advice and guidance for parents, educators,publishers, and others involved in the care and instruction of theyoung; and (3) to convey this advice to the targeted audiencesthrough a variety of publications, conferences, and other outreachactivities. In making its recommendations, the committee has high-lighted key research findings that should be integrated into existingand future program interventions to enhance the reading abilities ofyoung children, particularly instruction at the preschool and earlyelementary levels.

The Committee's Perspective

Our recommendations extend to all children. Of course, we aremost worried about children at high risk of developing reading diffi-culties. However, there is little evidence that children experiencingdifficulties learning to read, even those with identifiable learningdisabilities, need radically different sorts of supports than children atlow risk, although they may need much more intensive support.Childhood environments that support early literacy development and

INTRODUCTION 33

excellent instruction are important for all children. Excellent in-struction is the best intervention for children who demonstrate prob-lems learning to read.

Knowledge about reading derives from work conducted in sev-eral disciplines, in laboratory settings as well as in homes, class-rooms, and schools, and from a range of methodological perspec-tives. Reading is studied by ethnographers, sociologists, historians,child developmentalists, neurobiologists, and psycholinguists. Read-ing has been approached as a matter of cognition, culture, socializa-tion, instruction, and language. The committee that wrote thisreport embraces all these perspectivesbut we acknowledge the dif-ficulty of integrating them into a coherent picture.

The committee agrees that reading is inextricably embedded ineducational, social, historical, cultural, and biological realities. Theserealities determine the meaning of terms like literate as well as limitson access to literacy and its acquisition. Literacy is also essentiallydevelopmental, and appropriate forms of participation, instruction,and assessment in literacy for preschoolers differ from those for firstgraders and also from those for sophisticated critical readers.

Reading as a cognitive and psycholinguistic activity requires theuse of form (the written code) to obtain meaning (the message to beunderstood), within the context of the reader's purpose (for learn-ing, for enjoyment, for insight). In children, one can see a develop-mental oscillation between these foci: the preschool child who canpretend to read a story she has heard many times is demonstratingan understanding that reading is about content or meaning; the samechild as a first grader, having been taught some grapheme-phonemecorrespondences, may read the same storybook haltingly, disfluently,by sounding out the words she had earlier memorized, demonstrat-ing an extreme focus on form. The mature, fluent, practiced readershows more rapid oscillations between form-focused and meaning-focused reading: she can rely on automatic processing of form andfocus on meaning until she encounters an unfamiliar pharmaceuticalterm or a Russian surname, whereupon the processing of meaning isdisrupted while the form is decoded.

Groups define the nature as well as the value of literacy in cultur-ally specific ways as well. A full picture of literacy from a cultural

4E,


and historical perspective would require an analysis of the distribu-tion of literacy skills, values, and uses across classes and genders aswell as religious and social groups; it would require a discussion ofthe connections between professional, religious, and leisure practicesand literacy as defined by those practices. Such a discussion wouldgo far beyond the scope of this report, which focuses on reading andreading difficulties as defined by mainstream opinions in the UnitedStates, in particular by U.S. educational institutions at the end of thetwentieth century. In that context, employability, citizenship, andparticipation in the culture require high levels of literacy achieve-ment.

Nature of the Evidence

Our review and summary of the literature are framed by somevery basic principles of evidence evaluation. These principles derivefrom our commitment to the scientific method, which we view not asa strict set of rules but instead as a broad framework defined bysome general guidelines. Some of the most important are that (1)science aims for knowledge that is publicly verifiable, (2) scienceseeks testable theoriesnot unquestioned edicts, (3) science employsmethods of systematic empiricism (see Box 1-2). Science rendersknowledge public by such procedures as peer review and such mecha-nisms as systematic replication (see Box 1-3). Testable theories arethose that are potentially falsifiablethat is, defined in such a waythat empirical evidence inconsistent with them can in principle beaccumulated. It is the willingness to give up or alter a theory in theface of evidence that is one of the most central defining features ofthe scientific method. All of the conclusions reached in this report

BOX 1-2Dictionary Definition of "Empirical"

i.a. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment. b. Verifiable orprovable by means of observation or experiment.

I INNTRODUCTION 35

BOX 1-3Systematic Replication

Systematic replication allows researchers to repeat systematically theconditions and variables that a particular study, program of research, orresearcher has reported as worthy of classroom application.

Systematic replication allows researchers to rely on an empirical test ofthe results of a study instead of a researcher's testimony or report.

are provisional in this important sense: they have empirical conse-quences that, if proven incorrect, should lead to their alteration.

The methods of systematic empiricism employed in the study ofreading difficulties are many and varied. They include case studies,correlational studies, experimental studies, narrative analyses, quasi-experimental studies, interviews and surveys, epidemiological stud-ies, ethnographies, and many others. It is important to understandhow the results from studies employing these methods have beenused in synthesizing the conclusions of this report.

First, we have utilized the principle of converging evidence. Sci-entists and those who apply scientific knowledge must often make ajudgment about where the preponderance of evidence points. Whenthis is the case, the principle of converging evidence is an importanttool, both for evaluating the state of the research evidence and alsofor deciding how future experiments should be designed. Most areasof science contain competing theories. The extent to which one par-ticular theory can be viewed as uniquely supported by a particularstudy depends on the extent to which other competing explanationshave been ruled out. A particular experimental result is never equallyrelevant to all competing theoretical explanations. A given experi-ment may be a very strong test of one or two alternative theories buta weak test of others. Thus, research is highly convergent when aseries of experiments consistently support a given theory while col-lectively eliminating the most important competing explanations.Although no single experiment can rule out all alternative explana-tions, taken collectively, a series of partially diagnostic studies can

r ru


lead to a strong conclusion if the data converge. This aspect of theconvergence principle implies that we should expect to see manydifferent methods employed in all areas of educational research. Arelative balance among the methodologies used to arrive at a givenconclusion is desirable because the various classes of research tech-niques have different strengths and weaknesses.

Another important context for understanding the present syn-thesis of research is provided by the concept of synergism betweendescriptive and hypothesis-testing research methods. Research on aparticular problem often proceeds from more exploratory methods(ones unlikely to yield a causal explanation) to methods that allowstronger causal inferences. For example, interest in a particularhypothesis may originally stem from a case study of an unusuallysuccessful teacher. Alternately, correlational studies may suggesthypotheses about the characteristics of teachers who are successful.Subsequently, researchers may attempt experiments in which vari-ables identified in the case study or correlation are manipulated inorder to isolate a causal relationship. These are common progres-sions in areas of research in which developing causal models of aphenomenon is the paramount goal. They reflect the basic principleof experimental design that the more a study controls extraneousvariables the stronger is the causal inference. A true experiment incontrolling all extraneous variables is thus the strongest inferentialtool.

Qualitative methods, including case studies of individual learn-ers or teachers, classroom ethnographies, collections of introspectiveinterview data, and so on, are also valuable in producing comple-mentary data when carrying out correlational or experimental stud-ies. Teaching and learning are complex phenomena that can beenhanced or impeded by many factors. Experimental manipulationin the teaching/learning context typically is less "complete" than inother contexts; in medical research, for example, treatments can bedelivered through injections or pills, such that neither the patient northe clinician knows who gets which treatment, and in ways that donot require that the clinician be specifically skilled in or committedto the success of a particular treatment.

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INTRODUCTION 37

Educational treatments are often delivered by teachers who mayenhance or undermine the difference between treatments and con-trols; thus, having qualitative data on the authenticity of treatmentand on the attitudes of the teachers involved is indispensable. Deliv-ering effective instruction occurs in the context of many other fac-torsthe student-teacher relationship, the teacher's capability atmaintaining order, the expectations of the students and their par-entsthat can neither be ignored nor controlled. Accordingly, dataabout them must be made available. In addition, since even pro-grams that are documented to be effective will be impossible toimplement on a wider scale if teachers dislike them, data on teacherbeliefs and attitudes will be useful after demonstration of treatmenteffects as well (see discussion below of external validity).

Furthermore, the notion of a comparison between a treatmentgroup and an untreated control is often a myth when dealing withsocial treatments. Families who are assigned not to receive someintervention for their children (e.g., Head Start placement, one-on-one tutoring) often seek out alternatives for themselves that approxi-mate or improve on the treatment features. Understanding the dy-namic by which they do so, through collecting observational andinterview data, can prevent misguided conclusions from studies de-signed as experiments. Thus, although experimental studies repre-sent the most powerful design for drawing causal inferences, theirlimitations must be recognized.

Another important distinction in research on reading is that be-tween retrospective and prospective studies. On one hand, retro-spective studies start from observed cases of reading difficulties andattempt to generate explanations for the problem. Such studies mayinvolve a comparison group of normal readers, but of course infer-ence from the finding of differences between two groups, one ofwhom has already developed reading difficulties and one of whomhas not, can never be very strong. Studies that involve matchingchildren with reading problems to others at the same level of readingskill (rather than to age mates) address some of these problems butat the cost of introducing other sources of difficultycomparingtwo groups of different ages, with different school histories, anddifferent levels of perceived success in school.

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Prospective studies, on the other hand, are quite expensive andtime consuming, particularly if they include enough participants toensure a sizable group of children with reading difficulties. They do,however, enable the researcher to trace developmental pathways forparticipants who are not systematically different from one anotherat recruitment and thus to draw stronger conclusions about the likelydirectionality of cause-effect relationships.

As part of the methodological context for this report, we wish toaddress explicitly a misconception that some readers may have de-rived from our emphasis on the logic of an experiment as the mostpowerful justification for a causal conclusion. By such an emphasis,we do not mean to imply that only studies employing true experi-mental logic are to be used in drawing conclusions. To the contrary,as mentioned previously in our discussion of converging evidence,the results from many different types of investigations are usuallyweighed to derive a general conclusion, and the basis for the conclu-sion rests on the convergence observed from the variety of methodsused. This is particularly true in the domains of classroom andcurriculum research.

For example, it is often (but not always) the case that experimen-tal investigations are high in internal validity but limited in externalvalidity, whereas correlational studies are often high in external va-lidity but low in internal validity. Internal validity concerns whetherwe can infer a causal effect for a particular variable. The more astudy approximates the logic of a true experiment (i.e., includesmanipulation, control, and randomization), the more we can make astrong causal inference. The internal validity of qualitative researchstudies depends, of course, on their capacity to reflect reality ad-equately and accurately. Procedures for ensuring adequacy of quali-tative data include triangulation (comparison of findings from dif-ferent research perspectives), cross-case analyses, negative caseanalysis, and so forth. Just as for quantitative studies, our review ofqualitative studies has been selective and our conclusions took intoaccount the methodological rigor of each study within its own para-digm.

External validity concerns the generalizability of the conclusionto the population and setting of interest. Internal validity and exter-

INTRODUCTION 39

nal validity are often traded off across different methodologies. Ex-perimental laboratory investigations are high in internal validity butmay not fully address concerns about external validity. Field class-room investigations are often quite high in external validity but,because of the logistical difficulties involved in carrying out suchinvestigations, are often quite low in internal validity. Hence, thereis a need to look for a convergence of resultsnot just consistencyacross studies conducted with one method. Convergence acrossdifferent methods increases confidence that the conclusions haveboth internal and external validity.

A not uncommon misconception is that correlational (i.e.,nonexperimental) studies cannot contribute to knowledge. This isfalse for a number of reasons. First, many scientific hypotheses arestated in terms of correlation or lack of correlation, so that suchstudies are directly relevant to these hypotheses. Second, althoughcorrelation does not imply causation, causation does imply correla-tion. That is, although a correlational study cannot definitivelyprove a causal hypothesis, it may rule one out. Third, correlationalstudies are more useful than they used to be because some of therecently developed complex correlational designs allow for limitedcausal inferences. The technique of partial correlation, widely usedin studies cited in this report, provides a case in point. It makespossible a test of whether a particular third variable is accounting fora relationship.

Perhaps the most important argument for quasi-experimentalstudies, however, is that some variables (for instance, human malnu-trition, physical disabilities) simply cannot be manipulated for ethi-cal reasons. Other variables, such as birth order, sex, and age, areinherently correlational because they cannot be manipulated, andtherefore the scientific knowledge concerning them must be based oncorrelational evidence. Finally, logistical difficulties in carrying outclassroom and curriculum research often render impossible the logicof the true experiment. However, this circumstance is not unique toeducational or psychological research. Astronomers obviously can-not manipulate the variables affecting the objects they study, yetthey are able to arrive at scientifically founded conclusions.

54


Outline of the Report

In Chapter 2 we present a picture of typical skilled reading andthe process by which it develops. We see this as crucial backgroundinformation for understanding reading difficulties and their preven-tion.

Part II presents a fuller picture of the children we are addressingin this report. We survey the population of children with readingdifficulties in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we discuss risk factors thatmay help identify children who will have problems learning to read.

Part III presents our analysis of preventions and interventions,including instruction. Chapter 5 focuses on the preschool years.Chapter 6 discusses prevention and literacy instruction delivered inclassrooms in kindergarten and the primary grades. Chapter 7 pre-sents our analysis of organizational factors, at the classroom, school,or district level, that contribute to prevention and intervention forgrades 1 through 3. Chapter 8 continues discussion of grades 1through 3, presenting more targeted intervention efforts to help chil-dren who are having reading difficulties.

Part IV presents our discussion of how the information reviewedin the report should be used to change practice. Chapter 9 discussesa variety of domains in which action is needed and obstacles tochange in those domains. Chapter 10 presents our recommenda-tions for practice, policy, and research.

2

The Process of Learning to Read

In this chapter, we review research on the process of reading andwhat happens as children become readers. First, we outline howchildren develop language and literacy skills before they begin for-mal reading instruction. We then describe skilled reading as it isengaged in by adults and continue by describing how children de-velop to become readers.

READING AND LITERACY

In focusing in this report on preventing reading difficulties amongyoung children in the United States, we take a limited view of read-ing, putting aside many issues and concerns that would belong to afull consideration of literacy in various societies inside and outsidethe United States. Acts of literacy vary a great dealfor example,reading a listing in a phone book, reading a Shakespearean play, andreading a dissertation on electromagnetic force. As different as theseare, there are commonalties among them. For most texts in mostsituations, understanding what the text means is, if not the end goalof the reader, at least an important intermediate step. If someonehas difficulty understanding, the problem could be a matter of lim-

41

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ited knowledge; in the case of the physics dissertation, for example,limited knowledge of physics could be the downfall, rather than areading difficulty per se. Having learned to read without difficultymay not suffice to be literate with respect to that dissertation.

In our sense, literacy is both broader and more specific thanreading. Literate behaviors include writing and other creative oranalytical acts and at the same time invoke very particular bits ofknowledge and skill in specific subject matter domains (e.g., history,physics, mathematics, etc.) (Anderson and Pearson, 1984). The read-ing difficulties that we are considering are those that impede whatvirtually all literacy activities have in commonthe use of the prod-ucts and principles of the writing system to get at the meaning of awritten text.

We recognize that reading-related development can start in in-fancy or with toddlers. Many very young children are surroundedby written language products and are exposed to the importance andfunctions of reading in society. A child's reading-related develop-ment is interwoven and continuous with development that will leadto expertise in other spheres of life.

There is, however, a point in a child's growth when we expectwhat many, including young children, often refer to as "real read-ing" to start. Children are expected, without help, to read someunfamiliar texts, relying on the print and drawing meaning from it.What starts at this point is referred to in a variety of ways in theliterature: independent reading (Holdaway, 1979), the alphabeticprinciple (Ferreiro and Teberosky, 1982), the alphabetic stage (Frith,1985), the cipher stage (Gough and Hillinger, 1980), fully or trulyproductive reading (Perfetti, 1985), and conventional reading(Sulzby, 1994). We use the term conventional reading to encompassthe common meanings of these different terms.

Moving toward being a good reader means that a child hasgained a functional knowledge of the principles of the culture's writ-ing systemthe English alphabetic writing system for children in theUnited Statesand details of its orthography. But the foundationsstart earlier. Prior to real reading, young children gain functionalknowledge of the parts, products, and uses of the writing system and

THE PROCESS OF LEARNING TO READ 43

the ways in which reading and oral language activities complementeach other and diverge from each other.

DEVELOPMENT BEFORE KINDERGARTEN:THE FIRST FIVE YEARS

Learning to read and write begins long before the school years,as the biological, cognitive, and social precursors are put into place.One of the most important preconditions for literacy is the integrityof a child's health and sensory organs, since the window for theestablishment of such skills as language is relatively brief. The child'sintelligence, as long as it is in the normal range, does not have muchof an impact on the ease of learning to read (Stanovich et al., 1984).The capacity to learn to read and write is related to children's age-related developmental timetables, although there is no clear agree-ment on the precise chronological or mental age nor on a particulardevelopmental level that children must reach before they are "ready"to learn to read and write.

Children gain an increasingly complex and decontextualized un-derstanding of the world as their brains develop during their firstyears of life. As they grow and gain experience, new neural connec-tions are established at irregular rates, with spurts and plateaus(Peterson, 1994). Although this process is orderly, it is variableamong individual children due to differences in both biological andexperiential influences.

Children who become successful readers tend to exhibit age-appropriate sensory, perceptual, cognitive, and social skills as theyprogress through the preschool years. Through the interaction ofmaturation and experience, they become increasingly adept at mas-tering physical dexterity and locomotion, at categorizing and con-structing relationships between physical objects, at rememberingfacts and events over time, at engaging in imaginative play, at form-ing social relationships, and so forth.

Of course, many factors in an infant's life can affect develop-ment, ranging from maternal mental and physical health to condi-tions of housing, temperament, nutrition, and emotional stress andsupport. Although all these can have an impact on later literacy

5E2


development via their impact on general development, we focus inthis chapter on factors that differentially affect reading. Counting,number concepts, letter names and shapes, phonological awareness,interest in literacy, and cooperation with peers are some of the pre-school accomplishments that are of particular relevance to later aca-demic challenges.

For instance, children grasp the notion that one object or eventmay stand for another quite young (Marzolf and DeLoache, 1994).Learning that the alphabet is a symbol system for sounds fits intothis stream of development. The ability to use symbols is graduallyacquired during the first years of life as children interpret and createfirst iconic and then graphic representations. At age 3, most childrenin the United States recognize that golden arches "stand for"MacDonald's. But the fact that most 3-year-olds are able to usesymbols in one context or domain does not mean that they can applythis ability across all contexts and domains without specific practice.Young children also begin to learn how symbols work, for instance,using both hash marks and numerals to represent numerical infor-mation, noting the differences between numerals and letters, com-paring the way letters work in their own and their friends' writtennames, and understanding that letters symbolize sound segmentswithin words.

Children's concepts about literacy are formed from the earliestyears by observing and interacting with readers and writers as wellas through their own attempts to read and write (Sulzby and Tea le,1991). In each situation they encounter, their understanding is bothincreased and constrained by their existing models of written lan-guage. In other words, while these existing models mediate andenable understanding, the knowledge and beliefs of which thesemodels are composed are modified with use as the child exploreslanguage, text, and meaning. Beyond incremental learning, certainchanges in perspective and reorganizations of concept are also neces-sary. In this way, the breadth, depth, and nature of children's en-gagement with text determines a great deal of literacy learning.

The interplay between elaboration and reorganization ofchildren's mental models has been well documented in the domain oforthographic development (Ehri, 1991; Gough and Juel, 1991). Vi-

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sual word recognition can flourish only when children displace thebelief that print is like pictures with the insight that written wordsare comprised of letters that, in turn, map to speech sounds. Even aschildren begin to learn about spellings, they must also develop moresophisticated understandings of the forces beyond pictures and indi-vidual words that direct text meaning. These include, for example,the nature of word, sentence, paragraph, and text structures and thesorts of thinking and devices that hold them all together. Whereaseach such type of learning depends on experience and exploration, itmust also depend on certain conceptual insights.

For the child, Downing (1979:27) suggests, language is not anobject of awareness in itself but is "seemingly like a glass, throughwhich the child looks at the surrounding world, . . . not [initially]suspecting that it has its own existence, its own aspects of construc-tion." To become a mature reader and writer, charged with con-structing and corroborating the message of an author, this percep-tion must change. Moreover, each such change must be guided bythe metalinguistic insight that language invites inspection and reflec-tion. Indeed, literacy growth, at every level, depends on learning totreat language as an object of thought, in and of itself (Halliday,1982; Olson, 1995). See Box 2-1 for definitions of metacognitionand metalinguistic.

For most children, growing up to be a reader is a lengthy processthat begins long before formal instruction is provided in school orelsewhere. The following sections offer a brief sketch of what is

BOX 2-1More Definitions

"Metacognition" refers to thoughts about thinking (cognition); for exam-ple, thinking about how to understand a passage.

"Meta linguistic" refers to language or thought about language; for exam-ple, noting that the word "snake" refers to a long skinny thing all in onepiece but that the word itself is neither long nor skinny and has four partswhen spoken and five parts when written.

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learned, when it is learned, and in what kinds of situations learningtakes place during the course of successful language and literacydevelopment in early childhood.

Language Development

Children with intact neurological systems, raised by caring adultsin a speech community, fairly effortlessly acquire the spoken lan-guage of that community, exhibiting abilities within the domains ofphonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and lexiconor vocabulary (see Box 2-2).

Knowing a language, however, does not require a consciousawareness of the various systems involved in that language, nor doesit necessitate an ability to articulate the underlying principles orcomponents of the systems. Meta linguistic insights about some lan-guage domains typically emerge in the preschool years, however, asdiscussed later in this section.

Practically from birth, infants are able to distinguish all thesounds of any human language, and within a short time their percep-tual abilities become tuned to their native language, even thoughtheir productive repertoire remains limited to nonspeech sounds andbabbling for much of the first year of life (e.g., Werker and Lalonde,1988). Phonological development continues well beyond the first

BOX 2-2Key Definitions of the Components of Language

"Phonology" refers to the way sounds of the language operate.

"Morphology' refers to the way words are formed and are related to eachother.

"Semantics" refers to the ways that language conveys meaning.

"Pragmatics" refers to the ways the members of the speech communityachieve their goals using language.

"Lexicon" or vocabulary refers to stored information about the meaningsand pronunciation of words.


year and probably continues to be refined even in the early schoolyears (e.g., Nittrouer, 1992; Gerken et al., 1994; Fowler, 1991).

It has been argued that children's perception of speech undergoesa shift from holistic (based on overall prosodic or acoustic shapes ofsyllables and words) to truly segmental (based on small phonemicunits) during the late preschool period (Jusczyk et al., 1993; Studdert-Kennedy, 1986; and other studies reviewed in Gerken et al., 1994).This issue could be important for alphabetic reading, in which theletters correspond roughly to phonemes, especially if, as has beensuggested by some speech researchers (Walley, 1993), it is not untilthe early school years that a child's lexicon becomes large enough toforce the shift from holistic to segment-based strategies. It alsopoints to one possible basis for the well-documented link betweenvocabulary size and early reading ability: the development of finewithin-word discrimination ability (phonemic representation) maybe contingent on vocabulary size rather than age or general develop-mental level. The potential immaturity of some children's phono-logical encoding/representation systems at the time formal readinginstruction begins may impede their achieving a level of phonemicawareness for spoken words related to fluent decoding of writtenwords.

Comprehension of words emerges somewhat before the abilityto produce words, at around the time of a child's first birthday(Huttenlocher and Smiley, 1987; Nelson, 1973), and many childrenexhibit a sharp increase in the size of their working vocabulariesduring the second year of life (Bates et al., 1988). Vocabulary growthis rapid throughout the preschool and school years, and it is highlyvariable among individual children. Although there have been manyattempts to estimate the size of children's vocabularies, problemsarise because of definitions (e.g., what it means to know a word) anddifferences in the procedures used to estimate vocabulary size (Beckand McKeown, 1991; Nagy and Anderson, 1984). Despite thisimprecision, individual differences have been shown to be reliablyrelated to demographics; for example, one study found that firstgraders from higher-income backgrounds had about double the vo-cabulary size of those from lower-income ones (Graves and Slater,1987).

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Vocabulary size continues to increase with schooling and be-yond. It is estimated that students acquire around seven words perday (2,700-3,000 words per year) during the elementary throughhigh school years (Just and Carpenter, 1987; Nagy and Herman,1987; Smith, 1941). A review of this research points out that it maybe more correct to say that children become aware of seven wordsper day but that a longer learning process is necessary for thesewords to affect the child's comprehension and use of language (Beckand McKeown, 1991).

Another perspective on vocabulary growth stresses that newwords are not simply added in a serial fashion to a static and estab-lished vocabulary. Rather, the exposure to new words alters andrefines the semantic representations of words already in the child'svocabulary and the relationships among them (Landauer andDumais, 1997). Word counts, then, may be a very imprecise mea-sure of vocabulary development.

Research on grammatical development in young children sug-gests a very rapid acquisition of the basic syntactic structures of thenative language (e.g., Brown, 1973; Pinker, 1984; other studies re-viewed in Bloom et al., 1994). For example, children under twoyears of age show the kind of knowledge of word order in Englishthat allows them to appreciate that "Big Bird is tickling CookieMonster" means something different from "Cookie Monster is tick-ling Big Bird" (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1987; see Golinkoff and Hirsch-Pasek, 1995, for a review). Some time after they are able to compre-hend simple sentences, children begin to combine words so as toexpress some structural and/or syntactic relationship between them.The child's sentences grow in length and complexity from two tothree to four or more words, on average, over the remainder of thepreschool period. By the time of school entry, most children pro-duce and comprehend a wide range of grammatical forms, althoughsome structures are still developing.

Children's increasing linguistic sophistication allows them to uselanguage as a means of engaging in more complex information ex-changes with adults and older children. During book sharing withan adult, for instance, children progress from just focusing on thenames of objects in the pictures to asking questions about the con-


tent of the text. The child's ability to produce and comprehendcomplex sentences (with appropriate vocabulary and accurate pro-nunciation) then enables him or her to discuss abstract ideas ("Whatif . . . ?"), absent objects, and past events. This decreased reliance onimmediate context as a support for communication is a developmen-tal accomplishment that may ease the transition to school, wheredecontextualized language is highly valued.

Throughout the preschool period and well into adulthood, indi-viduals learn the pragmatics of their language, that is, how to uselanguage appropriately and effectively in social contexts (see Ninioand Snow, 1996, for a review). During the preschool years, thedevelopment of these abilities occurs in three domains: (1) produc-tion of conventional speech acts, such as requesting, attention get-ting, and describing (Dore, 1974, 1975, 1976; Snow et al., 1996); (2)use of conversational skills, including turn taking, topic contingency,and topic development (Bloom et al., 1976; Dorval and Eckerman,1984; Schley and Snow, 1992; Snow, 1977); and (3) production ofextended autonomous discourse such as narratives, explanations,definitions, and other socially defined genres (Donaldson, 1986;Peterson and McCabe, 1983; Snow, 1990).

Much of the work in the field of pragmatics describes how chil-dren learn the rules for using language in specific situations, such asbook reading (Ninio and Bruner, 1978; Snow and Ninio, 1986;Snow and Goldfield, 1983), sharing time (Michaels, 1991), and din-ner table talk (Beals, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1993). One avenue forintroducing and refining new pragmatic functions is through experi-ence with books and other literacy activities. For instance, in time,children begin to appreciate stories in which characters use languageto deceive or pretend, to understand the point of fables and othertexts that include metaphors and other figurative devices, and tograsp the differences between narrative, expository, poetic, and othervarieties of texts that books can contain.

As proficiency in the forms and functions of language grows,children also gain "metalinguistic" skills. These involve the abilitynot just to use language but to think about it, play with it, talk aboutit, analyze it componentially, and make judgments about acceptableversus incorrect forms (e.g., Pratt et al., 1984). Metalinguistic in-

64

SO PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

sights are applied in all language domains (phonology, syntax, se-mantics, pragmatics), such that pronunciation, word usage, and sen-tence and text forms can all be thought about in this new way by thechild. It was originally thought that this aspect of language develop-ment did not begin to emerge until about school age, but more recentresearch has demonstrated that some children exhibit rudimentarymetalinguistic skills by age 3 or even younger and that many chil-dren acquire a considerable degree of metalinguistic insight aboutsentences, words, and speech sounds by age 4 to 5 years, before theyenter school. It is also clear that metalinguistic skills continue toimprove throughout the school years.

One interesting metalinguistic development is the child's grow-ing appreciation of what a word is. Although even very youngchildren understand the idea that things have "names," the moreabstract concept of words as the building blocks of phrases andsentences, and as linguistic units whose sounds are arbitrarily relatedto their meanings, is only gradually attained during the preschoolyears (e.g., Tunmer et al., 1984; Chaney, 1989; Papandropoulouand Sinclair, 1974). These studies revealed that young childreninitially are unable to make a distinction between the word itself andthe object or action it refers to and cannot break sentences into theircomponent words. When asked to judge the length of words, forinstance, "snake" is typically deemed to be a "long" word, and"caterpillar" a "short" one, until the child begins to understandwords as distinct from their referents. Likewise, when asked tosegment sentences (e.g., on the pretext of saying it slowly enough forthe examiner to write it down), young children rarely isolate singlewords but instead break the sentence into phrases (e.g., The little girl/ was eating / an ice cream cone.) Gradually, nouns, then verbs andmodifiers, and finally function words (such as articles, conjunctions,and prepositions) come to be understood as individual linguisticunits, even though the boundaries between them may sometimes bemistaken (e.g., "a / nambulance" rather than "an / ambulance").

Another aspect of metalinguistic development is the child's abil-ity to attend to and analyze the internal phonological structure ofspoken words.


Phonological Awareness

This sketch of language development and of initial metalinguisticaccomplishments applies quite universally to all children learning toread. For children learning an alphabetic language, like English,there is an important additional ingredient: phonological awarenessand, in particular, phonemic awareness. As discussed in Chapter 1,in English, the printed symbols (letters or graphemes) systematicallyrepresent the component sounds of the language. Understanding thebasic alphabetic principle requires an awareness that spoken lan-guage can be analyzed into strings of separable words and words, inturn, into sequences of syllables and phonemes within syllables (seeBox 2-3).

The assessment of phonemic awareness typically involves tasksthat require the student to isolate or segment one or more of thephonemes of a spoken word, to blend or combine a sequence ofseparate phonemes into a word, or to manipulate the phonemeswithin a word (e.g., adding, subtracting, or rearranging phonemes ofone word to make a different word).

Spoken words can be phonologically subdivided at several differ-ent levels of analysis. These include the syllable (in the word protect,/pro/ and /tEkt/); the onset and rime within the syllable (/pr/ and/o/, and /t/ and /Ekti, respectively); and the individual phonemesthemselves (/p/, /r/, /o/, /t/, /E/, /k/, and /t/). The term phonologicalawareness refers to a general appreciation of the sounds of speech asdistinct from their meaning. When that insight includes an under-standing that words can be divided into a sequence of phonemes,this finer-grained sensitivity is termed phonemic awareness.

For most children, an awareness of the phonological structure ofspeech generally develops gradually over the preschool years. Amongthe first signs of awareness that spoken words contain smaller com-ponents are monitoring and correcting speech errors and "playing"with sounds (e.g., "pancakes, cancakes, canpakes"), both of whicheven 2- to 3-year-olds have been observed to do occasionally innaturalistic conversational settings. Appreciating rhymes (for in-stance, that light rhymes with kite) has also been noted in youngpreschoolers. The entry to phonemic awareness typically begins with

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BOX 2-3Key Definitions of Some Terms

That Are Often Confused

The terms phonology and phonological refer to the sound structure ofspeech and, in particular, to the perception, representation, and produc-tion of speech sounds. As such, the phonological aspects of languageinclude its prosodic dimensionsintonation, stress, and timingas wellas its articulatory units, including words, syllables, and phonemes.

Phonemes are the speech phonological units that make a difference tomeaning. Thus, the spoken word rope is comprised of three phonemes:

/o/, and /p/. It differs by only one phoneme from each of the spokenwords, soap, rode, and rip.

Phonemic awareness is the insight that every spoken word can be con-ceived as a sequence of phonemes. Because phonemes are the units ofsound that are represented by the letters of an alphabet, an awareness ofphonemes is key to understanding the logic of the alphabetic principleand thus to the learnability of phonics and spelling.

Phonological awareness is a more inclusive term than phonemic aware-ness and refers to the general ability to attend to the sounds of languageas distinct from its meaning. Phonemic awareness generally developsthrough other, less subtle levels of phonological awareness. Noticingsimilarities between words in their sounds, enjoying rhymes, countingsyllables, and so forth are indications of such "metaphonological" skill.

Speech discrimination, including phonemic discrimination, is distin-guished from phonemic awareness because the ability to detect or dis-criminate even slight differences between two spoken words does notnecessarily indicate an awareness of the nature of that difference. More-over, the study of the phonetics indicates that, both within and betweenspeakers, there are many variations in the acoustic and articulatory prop-erties of speech, including phonemes, that are not functionally significantto meaning.

The term phonics refers to instructional practices that emphasize howspellings are related to speech sounds in systematic ways.

The term phonological decoding or, more simply, decoding, refers to theaspect of the reading process that involves deriving a pronunciation for aprinted sequence of letters based on knowledge of spelling-sound corre-spondences.


an appreciation of alliteration, for instance, that boy and butterflybegin with /b/. Even so, many children initially find it difficult toseparate the component phonemes of a complex onset, reporting forexample that the first sound of play is /p1/ rather than /p/ or failing torepresent both sounds of such initial blends in their independentspelling. Many books geared toward this age group appropriatelyinclude rhyming and alliterative texts, and this may be one avenueby which children's attention is drawn to the sounds of speech(Bryant et al., 1990). In a sample of 3- and 4-year-olds, Chaney(1992) found that 91 percent of the children could judge correctlywhether a "Martian" puppet said English words correctly, 37 per-cent could be induced by the examiner to engage in sound play, and26 percent could reliably identify rhyming words. Identifying wordsthat began with a particular phoneme, however, was accomplishedonly by 14 percent of the children, and we know from other studiesthat not until age S or 6 are such segmentation skills exhibited by amajority of children (e.g., Calfee et al., 1973; Liberman et al., 1974).Hence, phonological awareness is correlated with age (Chaney, 1992;Hakes, 1980; Smith and Tager-Flusberg, 1982).

Chaney (1992) also observed that performance on phonologicalawareness tasks by preschoolers was highly correlated with generallanguage ability. Moreover, it was measures of semantic and syntac-tic skills, rather than speech discrimination and articulation, thatpredicted phonological awareness differences. Correlations betweenmetalinguistic and more basic language abilities have similarly beenreported by others (e.g., Bryant et al., 1990; Bryant, 1974; Smith andTager-Flusberg, 1982). These findings indicate that the develop-ment of phonological awareness (and other metalinguistic skills) isclosely intertwined with growth in basic language proficiency duringthe preschool years.

True phonemic awareness extends beyond an appreciation ofrhyme or alliteration, as it corresponds to the insight that every wordcan be conceived of as a sequence of phonemes. Children withphonemic awareness are able to discern that camp and soap end withthe same sound, that blood and brown begin with the same sound,or, more advanced still, that removing the /m/ from smell leaves sell.


Because of the physical and psychological nature of phonemes aswell as the nature of human attention, few children acquire phone-mic awareness spontaneously (Adams et al., 1998). Rather, attain-ing phonemic awareness is difficult for most children and far moredifficult for some than others. Still, because phonemes are the unitsof sound that are represented by the letters of an alphabet, an aware-ness of phonemes is key to understanding the logic of the alphabeticprinciple. Unless and until children have a basic awareness of thephonemic structure of language, asking them for the first sound inthe word boy, or expecting them to understand that cap has threesounds while camp has four, is to little avail.

In terms of acoustics, the syllable is an indivisible entity. By

extension, unless and until children have come to conceive of syl-lables in terms of the underlying sequence of elementary speechsounds of which they are comprised, their only option for learning toread or spell words is by rote memorization.

The theoretical and practical importance of phonological aware-ness for the beginning reader relies not only on logic but also on theresults of several decades of empirical research. Early studies showeda strong association between a child's ability to read and the abilityto segment words into phonemes (Liberman et al., 1974). Dozens ofsubsequent studies have confirmed that there is a close relationshipbetween phonemic awareness and reading ability, not just in theearly grades (e.g., Ehri and Wilce, 1980, 1985; Perfetti et al., 1987)but throughout the school years (Calfee et al., 1973; Shankweiler etal., 1995). Furthermore, as we discuss in Chapter 4, even prior toformal reading instruction, the performance of kindergartners ontests of phonological awareness is a strong predictor of their futurereading achievement (Juel, 1991; Scarborough, 1989; Stanovich,1986; Wagner et al., 1994).

Phonological and phonemic awareness should not be confusedwith speech perception, per se. Speech perception is the naturalability to detect and discriminate the sounds of one's language, forinstance, to be able to tell the difference between spoken stimuli thathave many elements in common, such as mail and nail, back andbag. (The term auditory discrimination is sometimes incorrectlyapplied to this skill, but that broader label also encompasses the

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ability to perceive other nonspeech sounds, such as tones, environ-mental noises, music, and so forth.)

Because speech perception involves some of the same sensoryand neural circuits as are used for hearing generally, children withhearing impairments generally also have poor speech discrimination.Other children have intact hearing but are selectively impaired inmaking discriminations among speech sounds. Not surprisingly,children who, for whatever reason, possess poor speech discrimina-tion skills are likely to have difficulty acquiring phonological aware-ness. Nevertheless, many young children who perform satisfactorilyon tests of speech discrimination exhibit weak phonological aware-ness.

Furthermore, whereas good phonological awareness in youngchildren is a strong predictor of reading success, good performanceon speech discrimination measures is not (see Chapter 4). In short,when administering a test of phonological awareness, it is alwaysprudent to assess also the accuracy of the child's perception of thestimuli (e.g., by having the child repeat items aloud before perform-ing the desired manipulation of the sounds). The research is clear,however, in showing that phonological awareness is different fromand much more closely related to reading than speech perceptionitself.

It is also important to clarify the difference between phonologi-cal awareness and phonics. Phonics is the term that has long beenused among educators to refer to instruction in how the sounds ofspeech are represented by letters and spellings, for instance, that theletter M represents the phoneme /m/ and the various conventions bywhich the long sounds of vowels are signaled. Phonics, in short,presumes a working awareness of the phonemic composition ofwords. In conventional phonics programs, however, such awarenesswas generally taken for granted, and therein lies the force of theresearch on phonemic awareness. To the extent that children lacksuch phonemic awareness, they are unable to internalize usefullytheir phonics lessons. The resulting symptoms include difficulties insounding and blending new words, in retaining words from oneencounter to the next, and in learning to spell. In contrast, researchrepeatedly demonstrates that, when steps are taken to ensure an


adequate awareness of phonemes, the reading and spelling growth ofthe group as a whole is accelerated and the incidence of readingfailure is diminished. These results have been obtained with normalas well as various at-risk populations (see Chapter 5).

Despite some confusion in the media and in some educationalcircles, phonemic awareness and phonological awareness are notjust new terms for speech discrimination or for traditional phonicsinstruction. Instead, they are terms that emphasize the importanceof sensitive and informed early literacy support and assessment thattake account of the cognitive elusiveness of the insights and observa-tions on which learning an alphabetic script depend. In addition,they are terms that serve to remind us of the fact that, no less thanfor higher-order dimensions of literacy growth, productive learningabout decoding and spelling necessarily builds on prior understand-ing.

One of the most interesting findings from research on the devel-opment of phonological awareness is that its relationship to learningto read appears to be bidirectional, involving reciprocal causation(Ehri and Wilce, 1980, 1986; Perfetti et al., 1987). In other words,on one hand, some basic appreciation of the phonological structureof spoken words appears to be necessary for the child to discover thealphabetic principle that print represents the sounds of the language.Moreover, as we discuss in later chapters of this report, numerousstudies have shown that learning to read can be facilitated by provid-ing explicit instruction that directs children's attention to the phono-logical structure of words, indicating that phonological awarenessplays a causal role in learning to read (see Chapter 6). On the otherhand, instruction in alphabetic literacy, particularly regarding thecorrespondences between letters and phonemes, in turn appears tofacilitate further growth in phonological (especially phonemic)awareness. That is why adults from nonliterate societies and stu-dents who learn to read nonalphabetic languages exhibit muchweaker levels of phonological awareness than do readers of alpha-betic languages (Morais et al., 1986; Read et al., 1986).

Not surprisingly, therefore, the correlation between reading andphonological awareness, which is already substantial by the start ofschool, becomes stronger during the early grades. This strong corre-


lation appears to be strengthened by the association between phone-mic awareness and children's ability to sound out (or phonologicallydecode) pronounceable nonwords and unfamiliar printed words.Theorists such as Share (1995) have argued that becoming skilled inphonological decoding provides the child with a self-teaching mecha-nism that, along with oral vocabulary knowledge and context, isuseful for learning to read words that they have not previously en-countered. After a few such correct decodings, these words can berecognized quite automatically. In thinking about the process oflearning to read and about how best to frame early reading instruc-tion, it is important to bear in mind these powerful reciprocal influ-ences of reading skill and phonological awareness on each other.

Literacy Development

Children live in homes that support literacy development to dif-fering degrees. Optimal development occurs through interactionsthat are physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively suited tothe changing needs of the infant through toddler years. Late in thefirst year, when babies begin to purposively grasp and manipulatevarious objects, books and writing implements enter their explor-atory worlds. Parents negotiate with children about how books areto be handled (Snow and Ninio, 1986; Bus and van IJzendoorn,1995, 1997). Infants between about 8 and 12 months who are readto by their parents typically show monthly progress from grabbingand mouthing books, to "hinging" the covers, to turning the pages.Much of this reading-like behavior is accompanied by babbling.

In years two and three, children advance from babbling to pro-ducing understandable speech in response to books and to markingsthat they themselves create. Late in the second year or early in thethird, many children produce reading-like as well as drawing-likescribbles and recognizable letters or letter-like forms (see Box 2-4).Two- and three-year-olds are often introduced by adults to modelsof letters and related sounds, drawing attention to sources such asSesame Street on television. Many of these children are also in childcare settings where teachers and caregivers expose them to models ofreading and writing.

SS PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

BOX 2-4Goodnight Moon

"Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown," proclaims a three-yearold girl, who pretends to read the cover page and author's name. Withgreat relish, she opens the book and faithfully recites each word frommemory.

The mother knows that the girl is not really reading but encourages herjust the same. Intuitively, she suspects what has been found by researchto be true: that children who pretend to read at this early age are morelikely to become successful later.

. . . and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon," continues thegirl. She lifts the book close to her eyes and scrutinizes the print on thepage.

"A-B-A-B-Z," she recites. while pointing to the word cow. This is animportant connection. Already, she knows that words are made of lettersthat can be named.

She resumes the story word for word, turning pages slowly. "Good-night noises everywhere," she whispers, and then pronounces, "The end,"proudly snapping the book shut.

Parents assist in their children's literacy development with sensi-tivity to culturally specific social routines in book readings (Snowand Goldfield, 1982; Snow and Ninio, 1986; Teale and Sulzby, 1986;1987; Kaderavek and Sulzby, 1998a, 1998b; Sulzby and Kaderavek,1996). Research conducted by Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines (1988)and Gadsden (1994) reveals that literacy resources are available inthe homes of even very poor and stressed families, although differentin quantity and variety than in moderate- or higher-income families(Baker et al., 1997). It is clear that during this period childrendevelop expectations that certain kinds of intonations and wordingare used with books and other written materials. Those who areread to frequently and enjoy such reading begin to recite key phrasesor longer stretches of words specific to certain books.

iRoutines with cultural significance as powerful as that of book reading do not appear tobe widespread in the area of writing, although this may be due to lack of relevant research(Burns and Casbergue, 1992; Anderson and Stokes, 1984; Teale, 1986).


Late in this period, many children label and comment aboutpictured items, describe pictured actions, and engage in some ques-tion-and-answer dialogue and/or create voices for characters in pic-tures (Kaderavek and Sulzby, 1998a, 1998b; Sulzby and Kaderavek,1996; Sulzby and Tea le, 1987; Whitehurst et al., 1988).

Between the ages of 3 and 4, children show rapid growth inliteracy (as in other domains), as they experiment with writing byforming scribbles, random strings of letters, and letter-like forms.Some children begin to identify salient sounds within words, andsome 4-year-olds are even able to demonstrate this knowledge intheir writing by beginning to use invented spelling, at least withinitial consonants (in English, many Spanish-speaking children tendto use vowels first). These children may spend time with toys andmanipulatives that include letters, numerals, and playful representa-tions of letter sounds and other symbol systems. More and moresuch toys contain mechanisms that "say" letters or words in re-sponse to a child's action. Sesame Street on television and CD-ROMs also provide meaningful stimuli at the letter, sound, word,and text level, and children at this age often control the repeatabilityof these stimuli using VCRs and computers.

Children who are frequently read to will then "read" their favor-ite books by themselves by engaging in oral language-like and writ-ten language-like routines (Sulzby and Tea le, 1987, 1991). For mostchildren at this age, emergent reading routines include attending topictures and occasionally to salient print, such as that found inillustrations or labels. A few begin to attend to the print in the mainbody of the text, and a few make the transition into conventionalreading with their favorite books (Anbar, 1986; Backman, 1983;Bissex, 1980; Jackson, 1991; Jackson et al., 1988; Lass, 1982, 1983;Sulzby, 1985a).

During this time, children tend to crcatc many and varied textsand display different kinds of writing systems. Clay's (1975) title,"What did I write?", came from a child query to a parent andcaptures part of children's writing development during this period.Clay examined children's early nonconventional writings and foundthat, even with scribble and nonphonetic letter strings, children ap-pear to be exploring features that they abstract about print, such as


its linearity and use of recursive features. Read (1971) and Chomsky(1975) were among the first to examine the writing of children whoseuntutored spellings reflected phonetic and phonological analysis ofspeech. Read (1975) demonstrated that children at these ages havealready developed conceptual categories for consonant and vowelsounds in spoken English and that these categories, which were lin-guistically sound, appeared to underlie the invented spellings foundin the children's writing.

Although it appears that children are hard at work as scholars oflanguage, observations of children engaging in literacy activities inhomes and preschools depict them as playful and exploratory inmost of these activities.

Table 2-1 shows a set of particular accomplishments that thesuccessful learner is likely to exhibit during the preschool years.This list is neither exhaustive nor incontestable, but it does capturemany highlights of the course of literacy acquisition that have beenrevealed through several decades of research. Needless to say, thetiming of these accomplishments will to some extent depend onmaturational and experiential differences between children.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SKILLED READING

Skilled readers can be compared with less skilled readers on theircomprehension (meanings of words, basic meaning of text, makinginferences from text) and on the accuracy and speed of their identifi-cation of strings of letters as words (decoding familiar, unfamiliar,and pseudo-words). The same set of cognitive skills distinguishesskilled from unskilled readers at the adult level as at the middlegrade level (Bell and Perfetti, 1994; Bruck, 1990; Daneman andCarpenter, 1980; Haenggi and Perfetti, 1992; Jackson andMcClelland, 1979; Palmer et al., 1985; Cunningham et al., 1990).We present an overview of the capacities of the skilled reader incomprehension and in word decoding.

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TABLE 2-1 Developmental Accomplishments of LiteracyAcquisition

Birth to Three-Year-Old AccomplishmentsRecognizes specific books by cover.Pretends to read books.Understands that books are handled in particular ways.Enters into a book-sharing routine with primary caregivers.Vocalization play in crib gives way to enjoyment of rhyming language,nonsense word play, etc.Labels objects in books.Comments on characters in books.Looks at picture in book and realizes it is a symbol for real object.Listens to stories.Requests/commands adult to read or write.May begin attending to specific print such as letters in names.Uses increasingly purposive scribbling.Occasionally seems to distinguish between drawing and writing.Produces some letter-like forms and scribbles with some features ofEnglish writing.

Three- to Four-Year-Old AccomplishmentsKnows that alphabet letters are a special category of visual graphicsthat can be individually named.Recognizes local environmental print.Knows that it is the print that is read in stories.Understands that different text forms are used for different functionsof print (e.g., list for groceries).Pays attention to separable and repeating sounds in language (e.g.,Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater, Peter Eater).Uses new vocabulary and grammatical constructions in own speech.Understands and follows oral directions.Is sensitive to some sequences of events in stories.Shows an interest in books and reading.When being read a story, connects information and events to lifeexperiences.Questions and comments demonstrate understanding of literal meaningof story being told.Displays reading and writing attempts, calling attention to self: "Lookat my story."Can identify 10 alphabet letters, especially those from own name."Writes" (scribbles) message as part of playful activity.May begin to attend to beginning or rhyming sound in salient words.

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Comprehension

Skilled readers are good comprehenders. They differ from un-skilled readers in their use of general world knowledge to compre-hend text literally as well as to draw valid inferences from texts, intheir comprehension of words, and in their use of comprehension-monitoring and repair strategies.

Comprehension research has demonstrated clearly the impor-tance of the reader's background knowledge for understanding texts(Anderson and Pearson, 1984; Anderson et al., 1977; Bransford andJohnson, 1972). Knowledge of the content addressed by a text playsan important role in the reader's formation of the text's main ideas(Afflerbach, 1990) and can be traded off to some extent againstweak word recognition skills (Adams et al., 1996; Recht and Leslie,1988). When studies have assessed the role of both basic processesand stores of relevant knowledge at a sufficiently fine grain, the twoseem to make separable contributions to comprehension (Haenggiand Perfetti, 1994).

Recent research accommodates the role of world knowledge in acomprehensive account of text comprehension that focuses on en-coding the basic meaning of the text sentences (Kintsch, 1988;Mannes and St. George, 1996). Both the basic comprehension ofliteral text meanings and the use of knowledge necessary to go be-yond the literal (propositional meaning) are accounted for. In com-bining the importance of the linguistic forms of the text with theimportance of the reader's background knowledge, the researchmakes a distinction between the reader's understanding of what thetext says, the text base, and what the text is about, the situationmodel (van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). In fact, text research hasincreasingly focused on the fact that a reader may understand severallevels of text information, including information about text genreand communication contexts, as well as the text itself and the refer-ential situation (Graesser et al., 1997). To consider just one level forillustration, understanding the situation described in storylike textstypically requires understanding the narrative and the temporal-causal structures, even when the causal relations between text ele-


ments are only implicit (Trabasso and van den Broek, 1985; van denBroek, 1994). Because texts cannot be fully explicit, situation mod-els require the use of knowledge and inferences (see Fletcher et al.,1994, for a review).

An important part of comprehension is concept developmentand knowledge of word meanings. Vocabulary knowledge has longbeen known to be a major correlate of comprehension ability, asmeasured by standardized tests (e.g., Davis, 1944, 1968). Researchhas found that comprehension is diminished by lack of relevantword knowledge (Anderson and Freebody, 1983; Kame'enui et al.,1982; Marks et al., 1974). Mezynski (1983) and Stahl and Fairbanks(1986) reviewed a series of studies that trained subjects for word/concept development to improve comprehension scores and foundthat, when certain conditions of instruction were met, the gain incomprehension was attained.

Of course, some comprehension of passages is possible, evenwhen a few of the words are unknown to the reader (Anderson andFreebody, 1983; Kame'enui et al., 1982). Reading itself can provideone with meanings for unfamiliar words, although readers also failto learn much about most of the unfamiliar words they encounter(Jenkins et al., 1984; Nagy et al., 1985; Shu et al., 1995; Stahl et al.,1989).

Comprehension monitoring is the ability to accurately assessone's own comprehension (Baker and Anderson, 1982; Garner,1980; Otero and Kintsch, 1992; Vosniadou et al., 1988). To studythis, an inconsistency is introduced into a short text, to see whetherthe reader detects it either during recall or when explicitly ques-tioned. A typical result is that some readers do and some do notdetect these inconsistencies, and those who do tend to be either olderreaders (compared with younger readers) or more skilled (comparedwith less skilled) readers. A less skilled reader may fail to detect thecontradictions in texts because they have misconceptions about high-level reading goals (Myers and Paris, 1978). An alternate explana-tion is that less skilled readers have difficulties with the componentprocesses of representing a text (i.e., word identification and basiccomprehension) and that this difficulty rather than an independentfailure to employ a monitoring strategy is the source of the problem.


There is some evidence supporting the latter explanation (Kintsch,1992; Vosniadou et al., 1988). Whatever the explanation, however,training in metacognitive skills has been shown to be effective forimproving comprehension (Brown et al., 1984; Paris et al., 1984;Gambrell and Bales, 1986; Palincsar and Brown, 1984).

Many basic cognitive processes are shared during reading andlistening. Syntactic and inferential processes as well as backgroundand word knowledge play a role in both. The correlations betweenlistening comprehension and reading comprehension are high foradult populations (Gernsbacher et al., 1990; Sticht and James, 1984)and for older children (Carlisle, 1989). A large number of studieshave compared listening to a text and reading one at different gradelevels (Sticht et al., 1974; Sticht and James, 1984). The correlationbetween reading and listening across these studies rose from grades 1through 6 and tended not to show further increases. Sticht et al.(1974) further noted that studies tended to find reading comprehen-sion to exceed listening comprehension for college-age students butnot younger students. Using their analysis as an approximation,"mature" reading comprehension might be said to begin when theadvantage of listening over written comprehension disappears, inseventh or eighth grade.

Three observations are important in interpreting data on therelationship between listening and reading comprehension. First,such data come from studies that control message content acrosslistening and reading. They do not address the question of whetherfundamental differences between typical speech exchanges and typi-cal written texts might play a significant role in comprehension. Weknow there are differences between written and oral language interms of their social processes. The differences and similarities be-tween written and oral language have been discussed by numerousresearchers (Kamhi and Catts, 1989; D.R. Olson, 1977; Tannen,1982; Sulzby, 1985a, 1987; Perfetti, 1985; Rubin, 1980; Galda etal., 1997).

Second, the high correlations between reading and listening com-prehension occur after the child has learned how to decode. Third,correlations inform us about variability across a population, notwithin specific individuals. Thus, on the basis of the correlations

7


among adults, the shared variance between listening and readingcomprehension may be as much as 80 percent. For children, theshared variance may be somewhat smaller, for example, around 50percent in fifth grade, approaching adult levels subsequently. Thisdoes not mean that a given individual reads as well as he or shelistens. The gap between one's listening and reading comprehensioncan in fact be quite large, even when the correlation between the twois quite strong.

Word Identification

The identification of printed words has long been treated as askill that is essential for novice readers, yet it remains important inskilled adult reading as well and is a necessary (but not sufficient)factor for comprehension. By "word identification," we mean thatthe reader can pronounce a word, not whether he or she knows whatit means.

For a skilled reader, the identification of a printed word beginswith a visual process that operates on the visual forms of letters thatmake up a word. The visual process is constrained by the sensitivityof the retina, such that visual forms are perceived sufficiently foridentification only within a relatively narrow region (the fovea).Studies of eye movements suggest that readers can correctly perceiveonly 5 to 10 letters to the right of the fixation point (McConkie andRayner, 1975; Rayner and Pollatsek, 1987). The effect of this limi-tation is that readers' eyes must come to rest (fixate) on many words.

Visual processes initiate word identification and immediately trig-ger other processes that complete it, including, most importantly,phonological decoding processes, which concern the correspondencesbetween printed letters and the sounds of the language, especiallyphonemes, the small sound units within spoken and heard words.The research on reading in alphabetic writing systems has developedan important consensus that phonological decoding is a routine partof skilled word identification. How the phonological and visual-orthographic information gets combined for the identification ofindividual words has been the focus of much research, fueled inrecent years by theoretical debates about how to conceptualize the


cognitive mechanisms of word identification (Besner, 1990, in press;Coltheart et al., 1993; Paap and Noel, 1991; Plaut et al., 1996;Seidenberg and McClelland, 1989). The various models, althoughthey appear dramatically different, can explain many of the samefacts about reading and about reading failure (Plaut et al., 1996).Generally speaking, what we know about word identification and itsdevelopment is based more on the common ground of these modelsthan on their differences.

One thing that is especially clear from the research that under-pins the models is that skilled readers develop both a knowledge ofhow spelling patterns correspond to possible word pronunciationsand a sensitivity, based on experience, to the relative frequency ofprinted word and subword forms. The only issue is the extent towhich sublexical phonology (pronouncing portions of words basedon a string of letters within the word) actually plays a role in theretrieval of word meaning from memory. Some work suggests thereis substantial phonological mediation (Berent and Perfetti, 1995;Lesch and Pollatsek, 1993; Lukatela and Turvey, 1990; van Ordenet al., 1990); other paradigms generate findings suggesting that pho-nological mediation occurs only some of the time (Besner, 1990;Coltheart et al., 1991; Paap and Noel, 1991; Waters and Seidenberg,1985). Even results suggesting that some word retrieval can occurwithout phonological mediation are consistent with the assumptionsthat (a) phonology is automatically activated during the identifica-tion process and (b) phonological word forms are retrieved alongwith meanings.2 In addition to supporting word identification, pho-nological processing during reading supports comprehension andmemory for recently read text (Slowiaczek and Clifton, 1980; Perfettiand McCutchen, 1982).

Word identification research has provided information abouthow words are understood as well as how their phonological form isinitially identified from print. Word meanings and sometimes theirpronunciations are necessarily context dependent; for example,

2lndeed, it is becoming clear that, even in nonalphabetic systems, simple word identifica-tion brings about an activation of the phonology of the word form, even if the reader's task isto determine meaning (Perfetti and Zhang, 1995).

8


"spring" can refer to a season of the year or a coiled piece of metal,and "read" can be pronounced like "reed" or "red." Context isimportant in interpreting the meaning of a word in a sentence, andskilled readers do this more efficiently than less skilled readers(Gernsbacher, 1993). However, it is equally important to note thelimits of context. Skilled readers do not skip many words when theyread texts (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1989), despite the potential thatcontext might provide for doing so. Indeed the percentage of wordsin texts that skilled readers look directly at is quite high, rangingfrom above 50 percent to 80 percent across a range of reading situ-ations (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1989). The benefits of context seem tobe mainly on the amount of time a reader spends on a given wordthe duration of fixationwith only slight effects on the probabilityof a word fixation. And, although skilled readers are very good atusing context to figure out the meaning of a word, it is less skilledreaders who attempt to make the greater use of context to identify aword (Stanovich et al., 1981; Perfetti et al., 1979).

Finally, experience builds automaticity at word identification,and it appears to establish an important lexical-orthographic sourceof knowledge for reading (Stanovich and West, 1989). This lexical-orthographic knowledge centers on the letters that form the printedword and is tapped by tasks that assess spelling knowledge, as op-posed to tasks that tap mainly phonological knowledge. It can bemost easily indexed by the amount of reading a person has done(Stanovich and West, 1989). The phonological decoding and lexi-cal-orthographic abilities are correlated, but each makes unique con-tributions to reading achievement. There are two complementarybut overlapping kinds of knowledge that support the identificationof words: one is grounded in knowledge of the phonological struc-ture of spoken words and knowledge of how orthographic unitsrepresent these structures. The other develops with the experience(made possible by the first) of reading printed word forms. Thesetwo types of knowledge may derive from related kinds of learning,however, since theories of word identification include both single-process and dual-process accounts of how a reader can come toknow both individual word forms and general procedures for con-verting letter strings into phonological forms.


BEGINNING TO READ

Emerging Literacy in the Transition to School

When children go to school, they find a social, emotional, andintellectual structure different from the one at home. They join agroup in which they have new rights and new responsibilities. Thereare over 20 others who are somewhat like them, with whom they canbe compared for better or worse. There are routines and structures.There is only one adult, and there is talk that is separated fromfamiliar routines. There are expectationsfrom the child, the child'sfamily, the teacher, and the curriculum. In light of these manychallenges, it is not surprising that the experience a child has duringthe first year of schooling has lasting impact on school performance(Alexander and Entwisle, 1996; Pianta and McCoy, 1997).

The acquisition of "real" reading typically begins at about age 5to 7, after the child has entered kindergarten. Schools with greaterconcentrations of urban minority students may send approximatelyhalf of their students to second grade not yet reading conventionally,although these students may be memorizing and then recognizingsome words as whole units (i.e., sight words).

The transition to real reading involves changes not only in thecomposition of skills but also in concepts about the nature of literacy(Chall, 1983). Adjusting to formal instruction in a school setting ismediated by the child's broadening of his or her concept of literacy,extending it to the new school culture. The purposes and practicesof literacy and language in classrooms necessarily differ from thosein any home, and all children entering school must adjust to theculture of the school if they are to become successful achievers inthat milieu (Heath, 1983). This transition is likely to be less difficultfor a child whose home literacy experiences and verbal interactionsmore closely resemble what goes on in the classroom than for a childwhose prior conceptualization of the role of literacy has been at-tained through experiences of a much different sort. Gradually thecurriculum emphasis shifts, and students find they are engaged in awide range of literacy activities and are responsible for doing them


well, all involving the common core of the reading on which theybegin work in the early grades.

Most 5-year-olds from supportive literacy backgrounds continueto make rapid growth in literacy skills. Children who are, as Hiebert(1994) puts it, dependent on schooling for literacy, or who havespent four or more years without rich support for literacy, will tendto show patterns more like younger children. However, when suchchildren are asked or enticed into doing tasks such as "reading yourown way" or "writing your own way," they do respond in interpret-able ways rather than showing no knowledge.

Children during this period will "read" from books that havebeen read to them frequently, increasingly showing the intonationand wording patterns of written language in their pretend readings(Purcell-Gates, 1991). Initially, they act as if pictures are what onelooks at when reading aloud from familiar stories (Sulzby, 1985b,1994). When watching an adult read silently, they may insist thatsomething be said for reading to take place (Ferreiro and Teberosky(1982), but five-year-olds increasingly engage in intensive scrutiny ofthe pictures in a page-by-page fashion, as if reading silently beforethey begin to "read to" another aloud in an emergent fashion. Someof these emergent readings will focus on pictures as the source of thetext, but increasing numbers will begin to attend to the print.

Print-focused emergent readings are significant in a number ofways. Children may temporarily refuse to read, saying that it is theprint that is read and they do not know how to do that. Or they maytemporarily read by focusing solely on an isolated feature of reading,such as sounding out real words or nonsense strings with signs ofgreat satisfaction, picking out isolated strings of sight vocabularywords, or tracking the print while reciting text parts that do notmatch the print. These reading behaviors appear to indicate a periodduring which the child is bringing together to the text bits and piecesof knowledge about how print works from other contexts, such asplay, writing, and environmental print (Sulzby, 1985b, 1994).

Children's writing also takes great strides forward during thisperiod. Children appear to move across various forms of writingeven up to grade 1, using scribble, nonphonetic letter strings, anddrawing as forms of writing from which they subsequently read.

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They plan their compositions to various degrees and respond toadults who ask them what they plan to write. They tend to hold toa plan and then read back consistent with that plan at this age, eventhough the writing cannot be read by another conventionally. Aschildren become more proficient writers, they also often go througha period or periods of insisting on "writing it the right way," askingfor conventional spellings. Others simply show their growing aware-ness of the difference between invented and conventional spelling bythe growing numbers and/or categories of words that they spell con-ventionally (Sulzby, 1996).

During this period, writing tends to become an active arena inwhich children practice their increasing ability to read convention-ally, albeit from familiar texts. Children identify letters and learnletter-sound correspondences. Invented spelling signals an impor-tant breakthrough. The knowledge of letters, sounds, and wordsthat has been developing from the earliest years appears to begin tomake some conventional sense to children. During kindergarten andfirst grade, many, if not all children who are allowed to, begin towrite using phonetically based invented or creative spelling (Read,1971; Chomsky, 1970, 1972; Henderson, 1981; Sulzby et al., 1989;Clay, 1975, 1979; Bissex, 1980). An interesting phenomenon ap-pears to take place: children seem to first encode phonetically inearly invented spelling; then there is a lag, during which time theyreread their own text without making use of their phonetic encod-ing. Soon, however, they begin to decode phonetically as well(Kamberelis and Sulzby, 1988). Children's early writing shows theabstractions they are making about the writing systems of their cul-tureand reveals how children form new understandings and solveproblems creatively in the process of becoming real readers.

Learning to Identify Words in Print

Beginning

Some research has demonstrated that 5-year-old children associ-ate features of print with spoken word names without any indicationthat they are using the orthography of the word (Gough, 1993;

8t


Gough and Juel, 1991). Children learned, in one experiment, to"recognize" a word by use of a thumbprint placed on a card contain-ing a printed word. When the thumbprint was absent, so was recog-nition. In another experiment, children were found to use selectiveparts of the printed word to associate to the spoken word. In fact,children who could "recognize" the word when only the first letterswere presented were unable to recognize the word when only thefinal letters were presented, and vice versa. This study suggests thatattending to all the letters of a word is not something that all chil-dren do at the beginning, at least when only selective attention isnecessary for the task. The study does not imply that the childcannot use letter forms and associated speech forms at that age. Itmerely shows that, in the absence of reading instruction and knowl-edge of letter-sound correspondences, children can approach a read-ing task by solving the problem of memorizing words but withoutlearning how the system works. Moving to productive reading re-quires more than this attempt to memorize on the basis of nonpro-ductive associations between parts of printed words and their spo-ken equivalents.

Becoming Productive

Addressing the early stages of learning to read, researchers arguethat children move from a prereading stage, marked by "reading"environmental print (logos, for example, such as MacDonald's orPepsi), into true reading through an intermediate stage, referred to asphonetic cue reading (Ehri, 1980, 1991; Ehri and Wilce, 1985, 1987).In this intermediate stage, the child begins to use the phonetic valuesof the names of letters as a representation of the word. For example,children can learn to read the word "jail" by picking out the salientfirst and last letters, j and 1, and associating the letter names, "jay"and "ell" with sounds heard when the word "jail" is pronounced.This kind of reading is viewed as a primitive form of decoding (orwhat Gough and Hillinger, 1980, called "deciphering" )decodingbecause it uses systematic relationships between letters and speechsegments in words, and primitive because it is a strategy that ignoressome of the letters and also because it maps letter names rather than

86


the phoneme values of the letters. In the full decoding or decipheringstage, children begin to attend to all letters and to map them tophonemes. Although these phonemes are not always the right ones,the child is then in the stage of full productive reading, because he orshe is applying the alphabetic principle very generally across encoun-ters with words.

Frith (1985) has proposed a stage model that provided frame-work for both reading and spelling development. In this model,children first read and write "logographically," using images ofwhole words; they then adopt an alphabetic stance to both readingand spelling, using letter-to-sound correspondence in reading andsound-to-letter correspondence in spelling. Finally, they adopt anorthographic stance, recognizing that spellings often do not reflectpronunciations directly and that reading requires attention to word-specific orthographic information. Perhaps most important in Frith'sframework is the idea that a stage change in reading drives a corre-sponding stage change in spelling and vice versa. Ellis (1997) hasrecently concluded that longitudinal research provides some supportfor the predictions of this model. .

These early connections between print and speech forms candrive a rapid transition to real reading. Indeed, the combination ofthese print-sound connections along with phonological sensitivityare critical factors in reading acquisition (Bradley and Bryant, 1983;Ehri and Sweet, 1991; Juel et al., 1986; Share, 1995; Tunmer et al.,1988). Studies by Stuart and Coltheart (1988) and Stuart (1990)illustrate the importance of these early phonologically based ap-proaches to reading. The extent to which children made phonologi-cal errors (e.g., "big" for "beg") in word reading early in the firstgrade predicted end-of-year reading achievement. Nonphonologicalerrorsincluding errors that shared letters but not in-position pho-nemes (e.g., "like" for "milk" )were associated with low end-of-year achievement. The point at which phonologically similar errorsbecame more common than nonphonological errors coincided withthe child's attainment of functional phonological skill, measured byknowledge of at least half the alphabet and of success in at leastsome tests of phonological sensitivity. Stuart (1990) added to theseresults by finding that the level of a child's phonological sensitivity

8.7


corresponded in some detail to the level of achievement in wordreading.

The idea that errors can be useful in diagnosing a child's readingstrategies as well as his or her skills is one developed by Goodmanand Burke (1972) in pioneering work with children reading textsaloud. In miscue analysis, a child's omissions, substitutions, andadditions and self-corrections in oral reading provide a window onthe extent to which children are monitoring for meaning, attendingto spelling-sound correspondences, etc. The pattern of miscues canbe informative to teachers and researchers.

Becoming Fully Productive

Truly productive reading, the ability to read novel words, comesonly from an increase in orthographic representations that includephonology. This requires attention to letter strings and the context-sensitive association of phoneme sequences to these letter strings.This is where phonological sensitivity should play its most importantrole. Children who have attained this level of reading can readpronounceable nonwords, and their errors in word reading show ahigh degree of phonological plausibility.

An important aspect of learning to identify words may be sensi-tivity to morphology. The morphological structure of English al-lows systematic changes in word forms to be associated with system-atic changes in word meanings. For example, "dislike" is related to"like," and "undo" is related to "do." Most of the time, phonology(pronunciation) reflects spellings, so words that are morphologicallyrelated share spellings and pronunciations, as in the examples in thepreceding sentence. Other times, however, the pronunciationschange systematically with morphological changes, and the underly-ing morphology is preserved through spelling. For example, "na-tional" preserves the root spelling of "nation" while altering the firstvowel sound. Certainly readers, like speakers and listeners, developsome sensitivity to a wide range of morphological relations.

The research on word identification has explored whether wordsare identified based on their morphological structure, that is, whethersome kind of morphological decomposition process accompanies

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printed word identification. One view is that words are representedas full forms without reference to their morphological constituents(Butterworth, 1983; Osgood and Hoosain, 1974). An alternativeview, more widely held, is that morphemes contribute to word read-ing. Whether words are decomposed into morphological compo-nents before or after word recognition is a further question (e.g.,Fowler et al., 1985; Feldman, 1994; Taft and Forster, 1975; Taft,1992). Whether the morpheme is a unit of processing and mentalorganization is the question, and this question has proved difficult toanswer in a simple manner.

How morphology is actually used in skilled word identificationis probably less important for learning to read than the awareness ofmorphology that a child can use to support learning words. Alongwith syntax (the structure of sentences), morphology (the structureof words within a sentence) provides a grammatical foundation forlinking forms and meanings in a systematic way. For reading words,morphology is especially important because it connects word formand meaning within the structure of sentences. For example, chil-dren learn that events that have already occurred are marked bymorphological inflections such as -ed. For children, sensitivity tomorphology may be an important support for skill in reading andspelling. Research by Nunes et al. (1997) has identified a series ofstages that characterize the development of children's spelling ofsimple inflectional morphology, such as the -ed that signals pasttense of regular English verbs. For words like "kiss" and "kissed,"for example, children appear to progress from phonetic spelling ofthe past tense (kist) to a morphological spelling (kissed). Notice thatphonetically, "kissed" and "soft" have identical endings. Childrenmay learn the -ed spelling and overgeneralize it to produce "sofed"as well as "kissed," before learning to use ed specifically for regularpast tenses. The key development here may be an increased sensitiv-ity to parts of speech, a "morphosyntactic awareness" that allowsfuller use of the linguistic system in spelling (Nunes et al., 1997).Thus, although phonological sensitivity is critical for the discoveryof the alphabetic principle (and is reflected in very early spellings), afuller sensitivity to the syntactic system may be critical to a fullmastery of English spelling.

8


Progress in Fluency and Automaticity

Gaining fluency in reading entails developing rapid and perhapsautomatic word identification processes (La Berge and Samuels,1974). The main mechanism for gains in automaticity is, in someform or another, practice at consistent input-output mappings(Schneider and Shiffrin, 1977). In reading, automaticity entails"practice" at word identification, such as frequent retrievals of wordforms and meanings from print. On a word-based account of read-ing acquisition, automaticity is a characteristic of words, not read-ers. Words move from the functional lexicon to the autonomouslexicon in this perspective (Perfetti, 1992). These gains from experi-ence normally come from accumulating normal reading activity cen-tered on reading text of increasingly greater complexity.

Progress in Understanding

For children learning to read, comprehension can take advantageof skills they have been using in their oral language: the shared basiclanguage components (lexical, syntactic, and interpretive processes),cognitive mechanisms (working memory), and conceptual knowl-edge (vocabulary, topic knowledge). As mentioned earlier, readingcomprehension skills are at first limited by unskilled decoding; later,comprehension when reading and when listening to a text are highlycorrelated; still later, the advantage of listening over reading disap-pears and, in some cases, for some kinds of texts and purposes,reverses (Curtis, 1980). But in the beginning, many tricks of thetrade that children have as native speakers will help a great deal.Moreover, early books can be well designed to support the child'sengagement and curiosity and keep the process going.

Theories of individual differences among both younger and olderreaders have emphasized, in one way or another, the dependence ofhigher levels of comprehension on high levels of skill in elementaryword identification processes (Perfetti, 1985) and processes requiredto manage limitations in functional working memory (Just and Car-penter, 1992; Gernsbacher, 1993; Perfetti, 1985; Shankweiler andCrain, 1986). Of course, systematic differences between oral lan-

9C


guage and written language may produce some difficulties for learn-ing to comprehend what one reads, and limits on background knowl-edge or a lean conceptual vocabulary can affect some text passagesand not others. It is not clear that limits on inferencing processes forreading- and comprehension-monitoring strategies can be viewed asindependent of the powerful effect of knowledgebackground andword knowledge as well as knowledge of the features of writtenlanguage that are not in the child's oral language repertoire.

Research on what young good comprehenders do is not as faralong as research on children's word processing. Studies that con-trast skilled and less skilled comprehenders have shown that skilledcomprehenders are better at decoding (e.g., Perfetti, 1985), havesuperior global language comprehension (Smiley et al., 1977), andhave superior metacognitive skills (Paris and Myers, 1981). AsStothard and Hulme (1996:95) note, though, many studies use mea-sures of comprehension that "confound decoding and comprehen-sion difficulties" and are less useful for identifying the crucial fea-tures of skilled comprehension in children. Few studies have beencompletely successful, however, in avoiding this confound. Somestudies have matched subjects on decoding measured in oral readingby counting errors.

In a series of studies of 7- and 8-year-olds in English schools,Yuill and Oakhill (1991) compared children matched for chrono-logical age and for reading accuracy but who differed significantly inreading comprehension on a standardized norm-referenced test thatmeasures the two aspects of reading separately. The skilled corn-prehenders (at or slightly above the level expected for their chrono-logical age in comprehension) were notable for the work they didwith the words and sentences they encountered in texts. For ex-ample, they understood pronoun references, made proper inferencesabout the text from particular words, drew more global inferencesfrom elements of the text that were not adjacent, detected inconsis-tencies in texts, applied background knowledge, and monitored theircomprehension.

Stothard and Hulme (1996) compared similarly identified skilledand less-skilled comprehenders but included a comprehension agematch for the less skilled as well and found an additional feature:

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skilled comprehenders (and the comprehension-age-matched chil-dren) had strong verbal semantic skills, whereas the less skilledcomprehenders were better at performance IQ than verbal. Stothardand Hulme suggest that high verbal abilities facilitate vocabularylearning from context, so that children with high verbal ability knowmore words to begin with, can read them, and when they encounterunknown words in their reading can also learn from them.

Cain (1996), also comparing 7- and 8-year-olds who differed incomprehension while being matched on word errors in context,added comprehension age match in studying story knowledge inreading comprehension. In a study of story production, skilledcomprehenders and the comprehension-age-matched children toldstories with the events more integrated when the prompt was simplya title. When the prompt for the story was a sequence of picturesthat provided an integrating structure, the less skilled comprehendersperformed better and the difference between them and their compre-hension-age matches disappeared. Cain also interviewed the chil-dren about the parts of stories that they encounter in reading. Skilledcomprehenders had more formed ideas of the information that canbe gleaned from a title and definite expectations that the beginningof a story will provide information needed to understand characters,setting, and plot.

Up to and including third grade, children are learning to monitortheir comprehension. It is clear that these skills can improve withtraining (e.g., Elliott-Faust and Pressley, 1986; Miller, 1985;Palincsar and Brown, 1984; Paris et al., 1984). Baker (1996) showedthat providing information and examples about what kinds of diffi-culties might be encountered in a passage helped children to identifythem, but that children in grade 3 worked with a smaller range oftypes of difficulty than did children in grade 5.

Tracing the development of reading comprehension to show thenecessary and sufficient conditions to prevent reading difficulty isnot as well researched as other aspects of reading growth. In fact, asCain (1996) notes, "because early reading instruction emphasizesword recognition rather than comprehension, the less skilledcomprehenders' difficulties generally go unnoticed by their class-room teachers." It may well be that relieving the bottleneck from

9c


poor word recognition skills will reveal, for some children, stop-pages in other areas that create comprehension problems; more re-search is called for on factors related to comprehension growth frombirth to age 8 that may produce problems as children read to learn inelementary school.

The "fourth-grade slump" is a term used to describe a widelyencountered disappointment when examining scores of fourth grad-ers in comparison with younger children (see Chall et al., 1990).Whether looking at test scores or other performance indicators, thereis sometimes a decline in the rate of progress or a decrease in thenumber of children achieving at good levels reported for fourth grad-ers. It is not clear what the explanation is or even if there is a unitaryexplanation. The most obvious but probably least likely explana-tion would be that some children simply stop growing in reading atfourth grade.

Two other explanations are more likely. One possibility is thatthe slump is an artifact; that is, the tasks in school and the tasks inassessment instruments may change so much between third andfourth grade that it is not sensible to compare progress and successon such different tasks and measures. It may be that the true nextstage of what is measured in third grade is not represented in thefourth-grade data and that the true precedents for the fourth-gradedata are not represented in the third-grade data.

A second possibility is that it is not so much a fourth-gradeslump as a "primary-grade streak," that is, that some children haveproblems in the earlier years that are hidden while so much else isbeing learned, in the same way that a tendency to make errors in theoutfield does not bother a ball club while the pitching staff is havinga streak of strikeouts. Previously "unimportant" reading difficultiesmay appear for the first time in fourth grade when the children aredealing more frequently, deeply, and widely with nonfiction materi-als in a variety of school subjects and when these are represented inassessment instruments. It may be that there had been less call forcertain knowledge and abilities until fourth grade and a failure tothrive in those areas might not be noticed until then. It is, of course,this latter possibility that is important for preventing reading diffi-


culties, and more attention needs to be paid to research on the fourth-grade slump.

CONCLUSION

Table 2-2 shows a set of particular accomplishments that thesuccessful learner is likely to exhibit during the early school years.This list is neither exhaustive nor incontestable, but it does capturemany highlights of the course of reading acquisition that have beenrevealed through several decades of research. Needless to say, thetiming of these accomplishments will to some extent depend on theparticular curriculum provided by a school. For example, in manyareas of the country, the kindergarten year is not mandatory andlittle formal reading instruction is provided until the start of firstgrade. The summary sketch provided by the table of the typicalaccomplishments related to reading over the first years of a child'sschooling presupposes, of course, appropriate familial support andaccess to effective educational resources. At the same time, there areenormous individual differences in children's progression from play-ing with refrigerator letters to reading independently, and many path-ways that can be followed successfully.

Ideally, the child comes to reading instruction with well-devel-oped language abilities, a foundation for reading acquisition, andvaried experiences with emergent literacy. The achievement of realreading requires knowledge of the phonological structures of lan-guage and how the written units connect with the spoken units.Phonological sensitivity at the subword level is important in thisachievement. Very early, children who turn out to be successful inlearning to read use phonological connection to letters, includingletter names, to establish context-dependent phonological connec-tions, which allow productive reading. An important mechanism forthis is phonological recoding, which helps the child acquire high-quality word representations. Gains in fluency (automaticity) comewith increased experience, as does increased lexical knowledge thatsupports word identification.

Briefly put, we can say that children need simultaneous access tosome knowledge of letter-sound relationships, some sight vocabu-

04


TABLE 2-2 Accomplishments in Reading

Kindergarten AccomplishmentsKnows the parts of a book and their functions.Begins to track print when listening to a familiar text being read orwhen rereading own writing."Reads" familiar texts emergently, i.e., not necessarily verbatim fromthe print alone.Recognizes and can name all uppercase and lowercase letters.Understands that the sequence of letters in a written word representsthe sequence of sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word (alphabeticprinciple).Learns many, thought not all, one-to-one letter sound correspondences.Recognizes some words by sight, including a few very common ones (a,the, I, my, you, is, are).Uses new vocabulary and grammatical constructions in own speech.Makes appropriate switches from oral to written language situations.Notices when simple sentences fail to make sense.Connects information and events in texts to life and life to textexperiences.Retells, reenacts, or dramatizes stories or parts of stories.Listens attentively to books teacher reads to class.Can name some book titles and authors.Demonstrates familiarity with a number of types or genres of text (e.g.,storybooks, expository texts, poems, newspapers, and everyday printsuch as signs, notices, labels).Correctly answers questions about stories read aloud.Makes predictions based on illustrations or portions of stories.Demonstrates understanding that spoken words consist of a sequencesof phonemes.Given spoken sets like "dan, dan, den" can identify the first two asbeing the same and the third as different.Given spoken sets like "dak, pat, zen" can identify the first two assharing a same sound.Given spoken segments can merge them into a meaningful target word.Given a spoken word can produce another word that rhymes with it.Independently writes many uppercase and lowercase letters.Uses phonemic awareness and letter knowledge to spell independently(invented or creative spelling).Writes (unconventionally) to express own meaning.Builds a repertoire of some conventionally spelled words.Shows awareness of distinction between "kid writing" andconventional orthography.Writes own name (first and last) and the first names of some friends orclassmates.Can write most letters and some words when they are dictated.

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TABLE 2-2 Continued

First-Grade AccomplishmentsMakes a transition from emergent to "real" reading.Reads aloud with accuracy and comprehension any text that isappropriately designed for the first half of grade 1.Accurately decodes orthographically regular, one-syllable words andnonsense words (e.g., sit, zot), using print-sound mappings to soundout unknown words.Uses letter-sound correspondence knowledge to sound out unknownwords when reading text.Recognizes common, irregularly spelled words by sight (have, said,where, two).Has a reading vocabulary of 300 to 500 words, sight words and easilysounded out words.Monitors own reading and self-corrects when an incorrectly identifiedword does not fit with cues provided by the letters in the word or thecontext surrounding the word.Reads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that isappropriately designed for grade level.Shows evidence of expanding language repertory, including increasingappropriate use of standard more formal language registers.Creates own written texts for others to read.Notices when difficulties are encountered in understanding text.Reads and understands simple written instructions.Predicts and justifies what will happen next in stories.Discusses prior knowledge of topics in expository texts.Discusses how, why, and what-if questions in sharing nonfiction texts.Describes new information gained from texts in own words.Distinguishes whether simple sentences are incomplete or fail to makesense; notices when simple texts fail to make sense.Can answer simple written comprehension questions based on materialread.Can count the number of syllables in a word.Can blend or segment the phonemes of most one-syllable words.Spells correctly three- and four-letter short vowel words.Composes fairly readable first drafts using appropriate parts of thewriting process (some attention to planning, drafting, rereading formeaning, and some self-correction).Uses invented spelling/phonics-based knowledge to spell independently,when necessary.Shows spelling consciousness or sensitivity to conventional spelling.Uses basic punctuation and capitalization.Produces a variety of types of compositions (e.g., stories, descriptions,journal entries), showing appropriate relationships between printedtext, illustrations, and other graphics.Engages in a variety of literary activities voluntarily (e.g., choosingbooks and stories to read, writing a note to a friend).

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TABLE 2-2 Continued

Second-Grade AccomplishmentsReads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that isappropriately designed for grade level.Accurately decodes orthographically regular multisyllable words andnonsense words (e.g., capital, Kalamazoo).Uses knowledge of print-sound mappings to sound out unknownwords.Accurately reads many irregularly spelled words and such spellingpatterns as diphthongs, special vowel spellings, and common wordendings.Reads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that isappropriately designed for grade level.Shows evidence of expanding language repertory, including increasinguse of more formal language registers.Reads voluntarily for interest and own purposes.Rereads sentences when meaning is not clear.Interprets information from diagrams, charts, and graphs.Recalls facts and details of texts.Reads nonfiction materials for answers to specific questions or forspecific purposes.Takes part in creative responses to texts such as dramatizations, oralpresentations, fantasy play, etc.Discusses similarities in characters and events across stories.Connects and compares information across nonfiction selections.Poses possible answers to how, why, and what-if questions.Correctly spells previously studied words and spelling patterns in ownwriting.Represents the complete sound of a word when spelling independently.Shows sensitivity to using formal language patterns in place of orallanguage patterns at appropriate spots in own writing (e.g.,decontextualizing sentences, conventions for quoted speech, literarylanguage forms, proper verb forms).Makes reasonable judgments about what to include in writtenproducts.Productively discusses ways to clarify and refine writing of own andothers.With assistance, adds use of conferencing, revision, and editingprocesses to clarify and refine own writing to the steps of the expectedparts of the writing process.Given organizational help, writes informative well-structured reports.Attends to spelling, mechanics, and presentation for final products.Produces a variety of types of compositions (e.g., stories, reports,correspondence).

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TABLE 2-2 Continued

Third-Grade AccomplishmentsReads aloud with fluency and comprehension any text that is appro-priately designed for grade level.Uses letter-sound correspondence knowledge and structural analysis todecode words.Reads and comprehends both fiction and nonfiction that isappropriately designed for grade level.Reads longer fictional selections and chapter books independently.Takes part in creative responses to texts such as dramatizations, oralpresentations, fantasy play, etc.Can point to or clearly identify specific words or wordings that arecausing comprehension difficulties.Summarizes major points from fiction and nonfiction texts.In interpreting fiction, discusses underlying theme or message.Asks how, why, and what-if questions in interpreting nonfiction texts.In interpreting nonfiction, distinguishes cause and effect, fact andopinion, main idea and supporting details.Uses information and reasoning to examine bases of hypotheses andopinions.Infers word meanings from taught roots, prefixes, and suffixes.Correctly spells previously studied words and spelling patterns in ownwriting.Begins to incorporate literacy words and language patterns in ownwriting (e.g., elaborates descriptions, uses figurative wording).With some guidance, uses all aspects of the writing process inproducing own compositions and reports.Combines information from multiple sources in writing reports.With assistance, suggests and implements editing and revision to clarifyand refine own writing.Presents and discusses own writing with other students and respondshelpfully to other students' compositions.Independently reviews work for spelling, mechanics, and presentation.Produces a variety of written works (e.g., literature responses, reports,"published" books, semantic maps) in a variety of formats, includingmultimedia forms.

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lary, and some comprehension strategies. In each case, "some"indicates that exhaustive knowledge of these aspects is not needed toget the child reading conventionally; rather, each child seems to needvarying amounts of knowledge to get started, but then he or sheneeds to build up the kind of inclusive and automatic knowledgethat will let the fact that reading is being done fade into the back-ground while the reasons for reading are fulfilled.

PART II

Who Are We Talking About?

Who has reading difficulties and what are the factors present inearly childhood that predict failure and success in reading? Part IIaddresses these questions.

Large numbers of school-age children, including children fromall social classes, have significant difficulties in learning to read. Toclarify this statement, we outline a number of conceptual issues inidentifying and measuring reading difficulties in young children.Categorical and dimensional approaches to estimating reading diffi-culties are presented, as are prevalence figures.

In a study on preventing reading difficulties, however, it is notenough to assess actual reading difficulties. Ideally, we want toknow which children or groups of children will have problems learn-ing to read when they are in school and given reading instruction.Effective preventions are necessary for children to receive in theirpreschool years, in some cases even starting in infancyfor example,for children with hearing impairments. Thus, there is a need toknow what factors predict success and failure in learning to read.We consider predictors that are:

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intrinsic to the individual and would be identified by assessingthe child;identified in the family environment; andassociated with the larger environment of the childthe neigh-borhood, school, and community in which the child lives.

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3

Who Has Reading Difficulties?

Among the reasons public attention has turned to the need forsystematic prevention of reading difficulties are the patterns of read-ing difficulty cited in the first chapter: failure to learn to read ad-equately is present among children of low social risk who attendwell-funded schools and is much more likely among poor children,among nonwhite children, and among nonnative speakers of En-glish. To begin our consideration of who is likely to have readingdifficulties and how many children we are talking about, we outlinea number of conceptual issues in identifying and measuring readingdifficulties in young children.

MODELS OF READING DIFFICULTIES

The major sources of evidence pertaining to these conceptualissues are several large-scale epidemiological studies in which popu-lation-representative samples of children have been examined to de-termine the incidence, prevalence, characteristics, persistence, andacademic outcomes of individuals who have been identified (by vari-ous criteria) as having reading difficulties. Prospective longitudinalstudies of sample surveys and general populations allow us to deter-

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mine the natural history of a disorder over time, to determinewhether the problem is transient or chronic, and how various riskfactors relate to outcomes. Earlier studies of representative school-age children are those by Rutter and Yule (1975) in the importantIsle of Wight and London studies and, later, studies by Rodgers(1983) in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and by Silva et al.(1985) in Dunedin, New Zealand.

More recently, Shaywitz et al. (1990, 1992) have reported on theresults of a sample survey of Connecticut schoolchildren followedlongitudinally from kindergarten through high school, and Catts etal. (1997) have reported on reading difficulties in a representativesample of children in Iowa. Together, these studies provide thestrongest basis for estimating the prevalence of reading difficulties inchildhood. It is also of interest, of course, to compare estimates ofreading problems from studies like the National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress (NAEP) and the Prospects Study to those fromprospective sample surveys.

Categorical Approach to Estimating Reading Difficulties

In identifying, studying, and treating reading problems, two mainkinds of reading difficulties have traditionally been distinguished.Reading disability, also called "dyslexia" and "specific reading re-tardation," was at first considered to be a qualitatively and etiologi-cally distinct condition that an individual either had or did not have.The condition was viewed as having a biological and perhaps geneticbasis, as being invariant over time, and as affecting a small group ofchildren, primarily boys.

A key criterion for identifying dyslexia was the existence of asubstantial discrepancy between the child's aptitude (operationalizedas IQ) and his or her achievement, reflecting the assumption that thereading problems of a bright and otherwise capable youngster aredifferent in nature from those of a child who is generally less able tocope with schoolwork. In this traditional conceptual model, poorreaders who do not meet the criteria for a reading disability arecharacterized instead as having garden-variety reading problems (or"general reading backwardness"), arising from such causes as poor

0

WHO HAS READING DIFFICULTIES? 89

instruction, low intelligence, and weak motivation. This model iscalled a "categorical" one, in that reading disability is viewed as aseparate diagnostic category, distinct from "normal" reading andfrom other reading problems. This categorical approach is typicallyfollowed in educational classifications, in which a variety of separatediagnostic labels are applied to children who are assumed to havedifferent kinds of reading problems.

A categorical model is still reflected in current education policiesfor the provision of services to learning-disabled children, affectingin particular those with reading disability. Special education servicesor programs, for example, require children to qualify for services inspecific disability categories, such as mental retardation, specificlearning disabilities, speech or language impairment, serious emo-tional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairment, visualimpairment, deafness-blindness, and other health impairments. Spe-cial education services are required by federal and state law and areprovided at no cost to parents.

The U.S. Department of Education is mandated by Congress toreport annually on the number of disabled children who are receiv-ing assistance through special education programs. According to themost recent data (from the 18th Annual Report to Congress on theImplementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Actof the U.S. Department of Education for the 1994-1995 school year),2,560,121 school-age children ages 6 to 21 with specific learningdisabilities are receiving special education services under the Indi-viduals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B and Chapter I. Thisgroup of children represents 4.43 percent of the total estimated popu-lation of 57,803,809 schoolchildren in this age group. The U.S.Department of Education does not specify the nature of the learningdisability, but the generally accepted estimate that reading disabilityaccounts for about 80 percent of all learning disabilities indicatesthat 3.54 percent of all schoolchildren in the United States (or2,046,254 children) are ostensibly receiving services for a readingdisability (Lerner, 1989).

Of course, these data reflect school-based decisions, using arbi-trary cutoffs, subject to local personnel and financial constraints;they clearly underestimate the number of children having difficulties

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in reading by ignoring those who are just on the other side of anarbitrary categorical boundary (Shaywitz et al., 1992).

In prospective epidemiological studies, the rates of specific read-ing retardation in Yule et al.'s sample was 3.5 percent of 10-year-olds and 4.5 percent of 14-year-olds on the Isle of Wight and 6percent of the 10-year-olds in London; the criterion was scores thatwere two standard deviations (SD) from the mean (Yule et al., 1974).In contrast, Silva et al. (1985) found only 1.2 percent of a sample ofNew Zealand schoolchildren met the same SD criterion. Similarly,Rodgers (1983), examining populations in Great Britain and North-ern Ireland, reported that 2.29 percent of children had scores fallingtwo SD below the mean for reading achievement.

The Connecticut longitudinal study, using a less stringent dis-crepancy criterion of a 1.5 SD discrepancy between predicted andactual reading achievement based on a regression equation or on acriterion of low achievement in reading, found 17.5 percent of thepopulation of schoolchildren in primary and middle school to havereading difficulties (Shaywitz and Shaywitz, 1996). Other availableprevalence data are limited either by the population base or by defi-nitional concerns. For example, in Canada, a privately appointedmultidisciplinary committee, the Commission on Emotional andLearning Disorders in Children (1970), estimated that between 10and 16 percent of school-age children required diagnostic and reme-dial help in learning. This finding is consistent with findings in U.S.studies that 14.8 percent of students in grades 3 and 4 (Mykelbustand Boshes, 1969) and 14 percent of students in grades 7-11 (Meier,1971) met criteria for underachievement.

Reviewing both population-based studies and numbers of school-age children receiving special education services, the InteragencyCommittee on Learning Disabilities (1987), in a report to Congress,estimated the prevalence of learning disabilities as ranging from 5 to10 percent. The vast majority of children identified as having learn-ing disabilities, and therefore reading difficulties, are identified bygrade 4. Standard measures of reading are often inappropriate foridentifying reading difficulties in older individuals, particularly thosewho can identify words accurately but not automatically. Freya-

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lence estimates based only on children in grade 4 or below willinevitably underestimate reading problems.

Dimensional Approach to Reading Skills

In recent research, strong challenges to the traditional categori-cal model have been raised. For instance, evidence for qualitativedifferences between dyslexics and other poor readers has been shownto be sparse, and genetic influences appear to be equivalent for thetwo categories. Also, for many years it was thought that readingdifficulties were much more common in boys than girls. Even todaythe ratio of boys to girls in samples of students identified by schoolsor clinics as reading disabled typically ranges from 2:1 to 5:1 orhigher (e.g., Critchley, 1970; Finucci and Childs, 1981). When morepopulation-representative samples have been examined, however,much smaller sex ratios have been observed, sometimes approachingunity (e.g., Flynn and Rahbar, 1994; Naiden, 1976; Shaywitz et al.,1990; Wadsworth et al., 1992).

As a result of this research, the categorical distinction betweenthese two kinds of reading difficulties is no longer as widely ac-cepted. A "dimensional" model of individual differences in readingachievement, described below, has been embraced by most research-ers, although not yet by a majority of educators (Shaywitz et al.,1992).

Dimensional models are appropriate when human abilities, suchas reading skill, are distributed in a statistically normal way along acontinuous dimension. From this perspective, reading difficultiesform the lower tail of a bell-shaped distribution that shades gradu-ally into normal and superior ranges of reading abilities. The popu-lation distribution is bell shaped because relatively fewer individualshave extremely high or extremely low reading scores, and relativelymore individuals have intermediate scores. The same factorsbio-logical, cognitive, instructionalare assumed to influence differencesin reading skill at all points along the continuum. Therefore, decid-ing on the precise point on the dimension at which to distinguishnormal reading from reading disability is quite arbitrary. In thissense, reading difficulties are analogous to many dimensional disor-

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ders in nature, such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and obe-sity. Blood pressure, like most physiological parameters (e.g., heartrate, temperature), varies from individual to individual along a con-tinuum. Somewhere along the gradient from low to high values, acut-point is imposed to distinguish hypertension from normal bloodpressure (see Box 3-1).

Evidence supporting the hypothesis that reading disability repre-sents the lower tail of a normally distributed ability comes fromseveral sources. First, the results of most epidemiological studiessupport a normal distributional model of reading ability (e.g.,Rodgers, 1983; Shaywitz et al., 1992; Silva et al., 1985; Share et al.,1987; van der Wissel and Zegers, 1985), whereas only Stevenson's(1988) research has been consistent with Rutter and Yule's (1975)original findings. Second, data from research in behavioral geneticsemploying a range of models and techniques (including admixture,segregation, linkage, and twin studies) have also converged to sup-port the conclusion that reading disability is neither distributionally

BOX 3-1Reading and Hypertension

There is considerable evidence to show that reading difficulties repre-sent not a discrete entity but instead a graded continuum (Shaywitz et al.,

1992). However, the fact that the distribution is a graded continuum does

not render the concept of reading difficulty scientifically useless, as many

critics would like to argue.Years ago, Ellis (1985) argued that the proper analogy for reading

difficulty is a condition like hypertension (high blood pressure). Hyperten-sion is a good analogy because no one doubts that it is a very real health

problem, despite the fact that it is operationally defined in a somewhatarbitrary way by choosing a criterion in a continuous distribution.

One's blood pressure is located on an uninterrupted continuum from

low to dangerously high. Although the line between "normal" and "hyper-tensive" is drawn somewhat arbitrarily, hypertension is a real and worri-

some condition. The question of how prevalent reading difficulty is in aparticular population is as meaningful as the question of how prevalenthypertension is. The prevalence of both is dependent on the choice of a

cut-point in a continuous distribution.

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nor etiologically distinct from other types of reading problems (Gilgeret al., 1996). Third, many studies that have compared groups ofpoor readers, who would be assigned to different categories accord-ing to the traditional categorical model, have generally found fewmeaningful differences between them (e.g., Fletcher et al., 1994;Stanovich and Siegel, 1994).

When reading difficulties are understood from a dimensionalperspective, it becomes clear that using a dimensionally distributedmeasure to assign children to categorical groupings (such as specialeducation classifications) can be problematic due to the arbitrarinessof the choice of a cut-point for distinguishing normal reading fromreading disability. For instance, children who do not quite meet thearbitrary cutoff score have very similar abilities and needs as those ofchildren whose reading levels are just on the other side of the cut-point. In the blood pressure analogy, individuals with values justbelow the cut-point, although not labeled as hypertensive, sharemany physical traits and vulnerabilities with those who do meet thearbitrary clinical criterion for hypertension. Also, when readingability (or blood pressure) is measured, we know that the results canvary somewhat from one test to another. These fluctuations inscores within individuals may shift a child from one side of the cut-point to the other, leading to the erroneous conclusion that a changein reading status has occurred (Shaywitz et al., 1992). To servechildren with reading difficulties effectively, it is essential that thedimensional nature of reading ability be understood and taken intoaccount in making educational decisionsjust as in treating hyper-tension a range of therapies are instituted to benefit those "border-line" as well as those with severe hypertension.

Assessing Reading Difficulties

In terms of the dimensional model, we have defined readingdifficulties as the lower tail of a normal distribution of reading abil-ity in the population. In other words, individuals with readingdifficulties are those whose achievement levels are lower than thoseof the rest of the people in the distribution. In general, it is mostreasonable to consider as the population of interest the people who

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have had the same amount of formal reading instruction. That is,there is a distribution of first graders, a distribution of second grad-ers, and so on, and the children at the low end of each are said tohave reading difficulties.

A nationally standardized reading test is one that provides infor-mation about where a particular test taker's score falls within thedistribution that is typical for all children from around the countrywho are in the same school grade. When using a nationally stan-dardized reading test, therefore, the cut-point for identifying readingdifficulties can be set at a particular agreed-on level (e.g., the 25thpercentile). The location of the cut-point necessarily determines theincidence and prevalence of reading difficulties in the population.

The situation is complicated, however, by the fact that two sortsof children who have traditionally been viewed as having legitimatereading problems and in need of special help would often fail toqualify for additional assistance if a national norm criterion is theonly one used. First, it is well known that the distributions ofreading scores in some schools (typically schools with affluent fami-lies) are consistently much higher than those for the nation as awhole. In other words, the second-grade distribution in these schoolsactually resembles, say, the fourth-grade distribution for a schoolthat is more typical of the national average. Many of the poorerreaders (relative to their classmates) at such a school will not earnscores that are below a cut-point (such as the 25th percentile) basedon national averages. Nevertheless, their teachers, parents, and com-munities consider these children to have real reading difficulties be-cause their achievement is considerably lower than that of their class-mates, despite equivalent schooling.

Second, a key criterion for assignment to the category of readingdisability has been a large discrepancy between achievement andaptitude (IQ). This notion of an IQ-achievement discrepancy crite-rion has been incorporated into many states' guidelines for classify-ing learning disabilities in schools. Studies have shown that about75 percent of children who meet an IQ-achievement discrepancycriterion are poor enough readers that they would also be consideredto have reading difficulties even if only their reading levels wereconsidered, ignoring IQ (Shaywitz et al., 1992). The other 25 per-

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cent would not, however, because these children have very high IQsbut only average, or slightly below average, reading scores for theirgrade.

Should these two subgroupsthose whose reading levels are lowrelative to their classmates but not relative to national norms, andthose whose reading levels are discrepant from their aptitude but notlow in relation to national (or even local) normsbe considered tohave reading difficulties? The committee's affirmative answer to thisquestion is based on research findings that (1) the way these childrenread (i.e., the aspects of the process that are most difficult for themto learn, the kinds of errors they make, and so forth) is very similarto that of children who are poor readers by other criteria (see, e.g.,Francis et al., 1996; Fletcher et al., 1994; Shaywitz et al., 1992;Stanovich and Siegel, 1994) and (2) they are at risk for the samekinds of negative educational and occupational outcomes, discussedbelow, as are other poor readers (Fowler and Scarborough, 1993).

In endorsing an inclusive approach to the identification of read-ing problems, however, we emphasize that no claim is being madefor any distinct qualitative categorical differences between these chil-dren and others. Instead, we are simply suggesting that in interpret-ing reading test scores it is sometimes appropriate to use criteriaother than the national distribution to represent the expectations forachievement for some children.

So far, we have considered only how well a child reads relative toan appropriate comparison populationa "norm-referenced" basisfor identifying reading difficulties (i.e., norms). This approach pre-sumes that the population distribution matches expectations abouthow well children at a given grade "ought" to be reading. Anotherapproach, called "criterion-referenced" assessment, offers a meansof addressing this issue. Briefly, this approach requires that stan-dards be established regarding what achievements children shouldattain at successive points in their educational careers. In principle,such standards can be stated in very narrow terms (e.g., by grade 2,the "silent e" convention should be mastered in reading and spelling)or much more broadly (e.g., by grade 4, all children should be ableto read and understand the literal meaning of texts; by grade 11, thereader should be able to "understand complicated information"

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through reading). Assessments are then designed to determinewhether or not children have reached the standards for their grade.The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an im-portant national program that takes this approach.

Based on criterion-referenced assessments, any child who doesnot demonstrate mastery of the expected skills and knowledge, de-spite having received instruction in a curriculum that covered therequisite material, would be considered to be having difficulty learn-ing to read. Note that, when this approach is taken, the prevalenceof reading difficulties will depend on how challenging the standardsare. If higher standards are expected to be met than are currentlyaimed at, large numbers of children will fail to attain them. If thestandards are less challenging, fewer children will be identified ashaving reading difficulties.

ESTIMATING THE PREVALENCE OFREADING DIFFICULTIES

Classroom practitioners, like the designers of the NAEP, aremore likely to make criterion-referenced decisions, such as "shedoesn't read well enough to understand the fourth-grade historytext." Potential employers share this preference; they are looking forhigh school graduates who can read technical manuals, understandand fill out order forms, and process memos. Educational adminis-trators prefer norm-referencing"90 percent of the third graders inmy school read above third-grade level" or "70 percent of the chil-dren in this school district are below average in reading." Of course,each of these various approaches leads to a different set of conclu-sions and implications concerning the incidence of reading difficul-ties.

In the absence of a widely accepted basis for a national estimateof reading problems, the NAEP results give a limited but useful view.Although the NAEP does not include assessments of decoding, norof oral reading, and it is not taken by the age range that is the focusof this study, it provides assessment of some comprehension skills ofchildren over age 9. On these limited assessments, average readingachievement has not changed markedly over the last 20 years (NAEP,

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TABLE 3-1 Mean Reading Achievement of 9-Year-Olds on theNational Assessment of Educational Progress, 1971-1996a

Group/Subgroup 1971 1980 1990 1992 1994 1996

National average 208 215 209 211 211 212

White 214 221 217 218 218 220

Black 170 189 182 185 185 190

Hispanic 190 189 192 186 194

aAll scores are scale scores ranging from 0 to 500. A conservative standard errorfor the scales is 1.5: since 2 standard errors are most often used to indicate signifi-cant differences, a difference of ±3 would be used for this purpose.

1997). And following a gain in scores by black children from 1970to 1980, the white-black gap has remained roughly constant for thelast 16 years (see Table 3-1).

NAEP provides estimates of the percentage of children at eachgrade who are reading at a basic level or below. "Fourth-gradestudents performing at the basic level should demonstrate an under-standing of the overall meaning of what they read. . . . [T]hey shouldbe able to make relatively obvious connections between the text andtheir own experiences, and extend the ideas in the text by makingsimple inferences" (NAEP, 1994, p. 42). In the most recent NAEPreport (1996), 40 percent of fourth graders, 30 percent of eighthgraders, and 25 percent of twelfth graders were reading below thislevel. Among black and Hispanic students, the percentages of fourthgraders reading below the basic level are 69 and 64 percent, respec-tivelythis translates into about 4.5 million black and 3.3 millionHispanic children reading very poorly in fourth grade.

Data from the Prospects study (Puma et al., 1997; Herman andStringfield, 1997) confirm this picture. The mean weighted readingcomprehension score for students in the fall semester of first grade inthe Prospects national sample was at the 50th percentile. By con-trast, for students in schools in which more than 75 percent of allstudents received free or reduced-price lunches (a measure of high

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poverty), the mean score for students in the fall semester of firstgrade was at approximately the 44th percentile. By the spring ofthird grade, this difference had expanded significantly. Children liv-ing in high-poverty areas tended to fall further behind, regardless oftheir initial reading skill level. In many regards, this finding repli-cates those from the Coleman report (Coleman et al., 1966) of 30years earlier, which highlighted the achievement gap related to lowincomes. Yet additional analyses from a subsample of Prospectssites, and from the Special Strategies studies conducted in conjunc-tion with the Prospects study (Stringfield et al., 1997), indicate thatsuch differences were not inevitable.

It is the concentration of poor readers in certain ethnic groupsand in poor, urban neighborhoods and rural towns that is mostworrisome, rather than the overall level of reading among Americanschoolchildren. Americans do very well in international compari-sons of readingmuch better, comparatively speaking, than on mathor science. In a 1992 study comparing reading skill levels among 9-year -olds in 18 Western nations, U.S. students scored among thehighest levels and were second only to students in Finland (see Figure3-1) (El ley, 1992) .

Despite these heartening findings, the educational careers of 25to 40 percent of American children are imperiled because they do notread well enough, quickly enough, or easily enough to ensure com-prehension in their content courses in middle and secondary school.Although some men and women with reading disability can and doattain significant levels of academic and occupational achievement,more typically poor readers, unless strategic interventions in readingare afforded them, fare poorly on the educational and, subsequently,the occupational ladder. Although difficult to translate into actualdollar amounts, the costs to society are probably quite high in termsof lower productivity, underemployment, mental health services, andother measures.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has examined various issues in identifying and mea-suring the population of American children with reading difficulties.

WHO HAS READING DIFFICULTIES?

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Finland

United States

SwedenNew Zealand

Italy

France

Norway

Singapore

Iceland

Ireland

GreeceBelgium (French)

Switzerland

Slovenia

Canada (B.C.)

SpainHungary

Hong Kong

The Netherlands

Cyprus

Germany (West)Portugal

Germany (East)Denmark

Trinidad & Tobago

Indonesia

Venezuela

200 300 400 500 600

99

700

5th

Percentiles o performance

25th confidence interval 75th 95th

FIGURE 3-1 Countries ranked by fourth-grade reading achievement (narrativescore). Note: The center solid bar indicates a confidence interval around theaverage reading proficiency for a country. The 5th, 25th, 75th, and 95th percen-tiles are indicated by shaded bars. Source: El ley (1992).

Identifying reading difficulties is essential for young school-age chil-dren, to ensure that intervention can be offered early and targeted tothe children who need it most. However, this report on the preven-tion of reading difficulties also addresses prevention efforts that oc-cur before formal instruction in reading. Therefore, we are inter-ested in factors that predict later success and failure in learning toread. These predictors are addressed in the following chapter.

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4Predictors of Success and

Failure in Reading

Of the many conditions that appear to contribute to successfulreading by schoolchildren, among the more important are eachchild's (1) intellectual and sensory capacities, (2) positive expecta-tions about and experiences with literacy from an early age, (3)support for reading-related activities and attitudes so that he or sheis prepared to benefit from early literacy experiences and subsequentformal instruction in school, and (4) instructional environments con-ducive to learning.

This chapter reviews the evidence concerning the predictors ofreading achievement: some measurable characteristic of a child orthe child's home, school, or community that has been associatedwith poor progress in learning to read.1 It is critical to distinguishpredictors from causes or explanations of reading difficultiespre-dictors are simply correlates. Nor can predictors be interpreted assuggesting the inevitability of poor reading achievement. To the

1Some sections of this chapter are based closely on a recent review of prediction research byScarborough (1998), which provides much more detail about the sources and findings thatare the basis for many summary statements presented here.

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1 1 ff.0.4,

PREDICTORS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN READING 101

contrary: the whole point of identifying risk factors is to alert par-ents, physicians, and teachers to potential obstacles children mightface so that effective interventions can be devised and implemented.

In the absence of other (noncorrelational) evidence, therefore,these predictors cannot be considered causes of reading problemsbut rather as associated conditions implicated in reading difficulty.Nevertheless, the fact that these characteristics correlate with subse-quent reading achievement is potentially very useful for identifyingchildren who may be in the greatest need of intervention. Our goalin this chapter is to present ways of identifying who should receiveservices to prevent reading difficulties.

That an individual or group has been identified as being at riskfor reading difficulties has no direct implications for the nature ofthe appropriate intervention. It is not the case that treating thepredictor itself is necessarily the right approach; for instance, if diffi-culty with letter identification turns out to be a predictor, this doesnot mean that instruction on letter identification is a sufficient or thebest treatment for preventing all reading difficulties (see Adams,1990). Conversely, the skills that are the focus of treatment may notnecessarily be the ones on which the identification of the individualor target group was based. In practice, identification criteria andtreatment plans can, and often will, be chosen somewhat indepen-dently of each other.

It should be borne in mind while reading this chapter that rela-tionships between effective predictors and reading difficulties aremarkers only and that other mediating variables, which are not mea-sured in a particular research study, may also correlate with readingdifficulties. Again consider letter identification: Scanlon andVellutino (1996) found a moderately high correlation (r = .56) be-tween letter identification and reading achievement. In this samestudy, the correlation between number identification and readingachievement was .59. Since these results indicate that both poorletter identification and poor number identification predict readingdifficulty, they weaken or at least complicate the hypothesis thateither of them is a direct cause of reading difficulty. Both may bemarker variables for another factor that goes further to explain bothletter and number identification.

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When deciding which factors to use to identify children who areat risk for reading difficulties, the main determinant should be thestrength of the association. (Of course, other practical matters, suchas cost and ease of assessment, also affect assessment decisions.) Oneway to measure the strength of the relationship between a kindergar-ten predictor and a later reading score is to compute a "correlation"statistic (symbolized by r), which takes a value of zero when there isno predictive relationship at all and takes a value of 1.0 when thereis perfect predictability. In between, the higher the correlation, thestronger the tendency for children who did well on the predictormeasure to become good readers, and for children who did poorlyinitially to end up with lower reading achievement scores later. Forexample, when reading is measured yearly, correlations betweenscores in one year with scores in the next year are typically in the .60to .80 range; in other words, they are quite strong but not perfect.As will be seen, correlations between the best kindergarten predic-tors and later reading scores are not quite as strong (in the .40 to .60range) but still provide a great deal of useful predictive information.For other predictors, however, the correlations tend to be lower.

Because correlations summarize the strength of the relationshipacross the full range of children's abilities, their use is consistent witha dimensional account of individual differences in reading discussedin Chapter 3. Another way to look at the strength of predictioninstead reflects the categorical model, which continues to predomi-nate in educational practice. In this approach, an at-risk subgroupof kindergartners is designated based on their scores on the predictormeasure, and a reading disability subgroup is identified based onlater achievement scores. The percentage of children whose outcomeclassification was correctly predicted is an overall measure of predic-tion accuracy. Furthermore, a predictor is said to have high sensitiv-ity if most of the disabled readers had been correctly identified as atrisk at the outset and to have high specificity if most nondisabledreaders had been classified as not at risk. It is also informative toexamine errors of prediction, including false positives (childrendeemed at risk who did not develop reading problems) and falsenegatives (those who did not meet the risk criterion but neverthelesshad difficulty learning to read).

11


In what follows we attempt to estimate the degree of risk associ-ated with many kinds of predictor measures, alone and in combina-tion. Sometimes the magnitude of risk can be estimated quite closelyon the basis of an abundance of longitudinal findings. For otherfactors, far less information is available regarding the degree of riskthey pose. For each predictor, we describe the average strength of itscorrelation with future reading achievement and, when possible, es-timate the probabilities of prediction errors and correct predictionsfrom studies in which risk status has been examined in relation tooutcome classifications.

We have organized this chapter by first considering predictorsthat are intrinsic to the individual and would be identified by assess-ing the child. We then move to a discussion of factors identified inthe household and then to factors associated with the child's largerenvironmentthe neighborhood, the school, and the community.

CHILD-BASED RISK FACTORS

Physical and Clinical Conditions

Some primary organic conditions are associated with the de-velopment of learning problems as secondary symptoms. That is,the child's reading and more general learning problems are thoughtto result from cognitive or sensory limitations that follow from theprimary diagnosis. These primary conditions include:

severe cognitive deficiencies,hearing impairment,chronic otitis media,(specific) early language impairment, andattention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Cognitive Deficiencies

Children with severe cognitive deficiencies usually develop verylow, if any, reading achievement. Other factors that are associatedwith developmental delays in cognitive abilities include severe nutri-

S


tional deficiency, very low birthweight, fetal alcohol syndrome, leadpoisoning, and severe psychopathological conditions that emerge inearly childhood.

Hearing Impairment

Hearing impairment or deafness is another condition well docu-mented to be associated with reading difficulty (Conrad, 1979;Karchmer et al., 1978; Waters and Doehring, 1990). Chronic earinfections (chronic otitis media) often lead to intermittent hearingloss during the early years. Concern has thus been raised regardingthe effects of this on language development and, later, on reading.For chronic otitis media and reading difficulties, results are mixed.Wallace and Hooper (1997) reviewed 18 studies examining chronicotitis media and reading and noted a modest association between thetwo for language-based skills such as reading.

Early Language Impairment

Although there is tremendous variability in the rate with whichchildren acquire language during their first four years of life, somechildren are so clearly behind by age 3 that it arouses concern on thepart of their parents, neighbors, preschool teachers, pediatricians, orothers. In many such cases, delayed language development is thefirst indication of a broader primary condition, such as a generaldevelopmental disability, autism, hearing impairment, or neurologi-cal condition, which is likely too be associated with reading difficulty.

In other cases, however, an evaluation by a speech-languageprofessional results in a diagnosis of "(specific) early languageimpairment"(ELI) and usually the initiation of a course of therapydesigned to stimulate language growth in one or more domains.

There have been more than a dozen follow-up studies of the lateracademic achievements of children who were clinically identified ashaving specific early language impairment. In this work, the sam-pling criteria, the initial skill levels of the children, and the measuresof outcome status have not always been well specified and are rarelycomparable from study to study; nevertheless, several general trends

1 1 S


are evident. First, between 40 and 75 percent of preschoolers withearly language impairment develop reading difficulties later, often inconjunction with broader academic achievement problems (Aramand Hall, 1989; Bashir and Scavuzzo, 1992). Second, the risk forreading problems appears to be lowest among those whose earlylanguage weaknesses were relatively mild or were confined to a nar-row domain (especially to speech production alone). Nevertheless,some children with only mild-to-moderate language delays, who ap-pear to overcome their spoken-language difficulties by the end of thepreschool period, remain at greater risk than other youngsters forthe development of a reading difficulty (e.g., Scarborough andDobrich, 1990; Stark et al., 1984; Stothard et al., in press). Third,regardless of a child's general cognitive abilities or therapeutic his-tory, in general the risk for reading problems is greatest when achild's language impairment is severe in any area, broad in scope, orpersistent over the preschool years (e.g., Stark et al., 1984; Bishopand Adams, 1990).

Attention Deficits

Although good evidence indicates that attention deficit/hyperac-tivity disorder and reading disability are distinct disorders, they fre-quently co-occur. Longitudinal follow-up indicates that, from thebeginning of formal schooling, reading disability is relatively com-mon in children with inattention problems (31 percent in first grade),becoming even more frequent as the child matures (over 50 percentin ninth gradeS.E. Shaywitz et al., 1994; B.A. Shaywitz et al.,1995a).

Other Conditions

A visual impairment is not in itself a predictor of reading diffi-culty. If not correctable, it makes the reading of printed text impos-sible, so the visually impaired child must instead learn to read Braillemanually. Because Braille notation for English text is alphabetic,and because discovering the alphabetic principle is often the biggestobstacle to children in learning to read, many of the same risk fac-

1 2 C)


tors that have been identified for sighted children also presumablyapply. Unless these or some other Braille-specific processing difficul-ties (such as poor manual discrimination) are present, there is prob-ably no higher risk for reading difficulties among blind children thanamong sighted children, provided that early and adequate instruc-tion in reading Braille is provided.

Developmental Differences in Language andLinguistic Development

Children who are developing normally achieve certain milestonesof motor, linguistic, and cognitive development at predictable ages.Children who show delays in language development in particularhave been studied to determine whether these early language delaysrelate to literacy problems later on. As described earlier, clinicalfollow-up studies of preschoolers who had been diagnosed as havingELI indicate that this diagnosis is associated with considerable risk.Even among children who do not receive an ELI diagnosis, there istremendous variation in language skills. Only a handful of longitu-dinal prediction studies have initially assessed children from birththrough age 4, in part because of the difficulty of testing childrenaccurately in this age range. The main focus of these investigationshas been to describe the development of various linguistic and meta-linguistic abilities in very young children and then follow them upthrough their early school years.

To our knowledge, only one study has directly examined theprediction of reading from language and linguistic developmentaldifferences among infants (Shapiro et al., 1990). A composite mea-sure of infant achievement was found to predict reading status (read-ing disability or not) with .73 sensitivity (i.e., 73 percent of childrenwith reading disability had been classified initially as at risk) and .74specificity (i.e., 74 percent of nondisabled readers had been classifiedas not at risk). Individually, the expressive language milestonesmade a particularly strong contribution to prediction; including IQin the composite measure did not improve accuracy. Although notsufficiently accurate for practical use, this degree of predictive suc-cess is nevertheless remarkably high, particularly in comparison to

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the results emerging from studies predicting reading difficulty fromkindergarten (see section below).

Walker et al. (1994) cumulatively monitored mean utterancelength and number of vocabulary words produced, two developmen-tally sensitive aspects of emerging language. The two early-languagemeasures, which were highly intercorrelated, correlated moderatelywell with reading scores in grades 1 through 3, as did the preschoolIQ scores.

Bryant et al. (1989, 1990) tested young children on several pho-nological awareness measures, as well as IQ. Performance on read-ing tests was predicted by receptive vocabulary, expressive languageability, receptive language ability, nursery rhyme recitation, and IQ.Correlations of the rhyme-matching measure with later reading werenot reported, and this measure was only weakly related to the testsof phonological awareness at 40-55 months, the last of which werestrongly predictive of reading.

Scarborough (1991) considered several language and IQ mea-sures and reading outcomes at the end of grade 2 for a sample of 62children, about half of whom had parents and/or older siblings withreading problems. IQ scores correlated moderately with later read-ing, as did scores on receptive language. Expressive vocabulary skillat age 42 months predicted reading a bit more strongly than didreceptive vocabulary scores at the same age. In addition, for a subsetof 52 children at age 2.5 years (20 from affected families who be-came reading disabled; 20 similar in sex, socioeconomic status (SES),and IQ; nonreading disability cases from unaffected families; and 12who became good readers despite a family history of reading disabil-ity), measures of expressive phonological (pronunciation accuracy),syntactic (length/complexity of sentences), and lexical (word diver-sity) abilities were derived from naturalistic observations of children'slanguage during play sessions with their mothers (Scarborough,1990). The children who became poor readers were much weakerthan the other groups on the syntactic and phonological measures.At ages 3, 3.5, and 4 years, however, only the syntactic differenceswere evident.

What is most striking about the results of the preceding studies isthe power of early preschool language to predict reading three to five

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years later. In fact, the correlations between reading and early pre-school measures are almost as high as those between kindergartenpredictors and reading (see next section).

Predictors at School Entry

Acquired Proficiency in Language

Spoken language and reading have much in common. If theprinted words can be efficiently recognized, comprehension of con-nected text depends heavily on the reader's oral-language abilities,particularly with regard to understanding the meanings of wordsthat have been identified and the syntactic and semantic relation-ships among them. Indeed, many early research reports called atten-tion to the differences between good and poor readers in their com-prehension and production of structural relations within spokensentences.

Given the close relationship between reading and language, weshould expect that normally occurring variations in language differ-ences would be related to speed or ease of the acquisition of reading.Earlier, we reviewed the empirical data indicating that language de-velopment in the preschool years is indeed related to later readingachievement and that preschoolers with language disabilities arehighly likely to show reading problems as well. Here we considerwhether variation in language abilities at the time children typicallybegin to receive formal reading instruction also relates to variabilityin reading outcomes.

Verbal Memory The ability to retain verbal information in workingmemory is essential for reading and learning, so it might be expectedthat verbal memory measures would be effective predictors of futurereading achievement. Many prediction studies have included suchmeasures within their predictor batteries. From the results of thosestudies (Scarborough, 1998), it is clear that, on average, kindergart-ners' abilities to repeat sentences or to recall a brief story that wasjust read aloud to them are more strongly related to their futurereading achievement than are their scores on digit span, word span,

23


and pseudo-word repetition measures. Sentence or story recall (r.45), in fact, compares favorably with other predictors of reading(see Table 4-1).

Lexical and Syntactic Skills Several kinds of vocabulary measureshave been examined as predictors of future reading achievement.On each trial of a "receptive" vocabulary test, the child must indi-cate which of several pictures best corresponds to the word (usuallya noun, adjective, or gerund) spoken by the examiner. A long seriesof items of increasing difficulty is available, and testing terminateswhen the child's vocabulary level is exceeded. As shown in Table 4-1, in 20 prediction studies the mean correlation between receptivevocabulary scores in kindergarten and subsequent reading scores inthe first three grades is .36.

With regard to lexical abilities, one can also examine expressive,rather than receptive, vocabulary, which is also sometimes referredto as "confrontation naming" or simply "object naming." On suchtests, the child is shown a series of drawings of objects and is askedto name each one. Compared with receptive tests, these measuresplace greater demands on accurate retrieval of stored phonologicalrepresentations of lexical items and on the formulation and produc-tion of spoken responses.

To our knowledge, only five kindergarten prediction studies haveincluded confrontation naming measures in the predictor battery,but the magnitude and consistency of the results of those studiessuggest that naming vocabulary is a reliable predictor of future read-ing ability. On average, expressive vocabulary measures are associ-ated (r = .45) with a considerable amount of variance in subsequentreading scores, which compares favorably with the effect sizes forreceptive vocabulary and IQ.

Not only the accuracy of name production but also its speed canbe measured. Rapid serial naming speed has been shown to corre-late with concurrent and future reading ability but not with IQ inseveral dozen studies of schoolchildren (e.g., Ackerman et al., 1990;Bowers and Swanson, 1991; Cornwall, 1992; Denckla and Rudel,1976b; Felton et al., 1987; Spring and Davis, 1988; Wolf andObregon, 1992). Rapid serial naming speed has been found to be

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TABLE 4-1 Prediction of Reading Difficulties at School Entry

Factors Identifiedin the Child

Number of Strength ofSamples Relationship

LanguageVerbal memory for Median r = .49stories/sentences 11 mean r = .45 (SD = .14)

Lexical skills1. Receptive vocabulary 20 Median r = .33

mean r = .36 (SD = .17)2. Confrontational naming 5 Median r = .49

mean r = .45 (SD = .07)3. Rapid serial naming 14 Median r = .40

mean r = .38 (SD = .09)Receptive language, syntax/ 9 Median r = .38

morphology mean r = .37 (SD = na)Expressive language 11 Median r = .37

mean r= .32 (SD = .16)Overall language 4 Median r = .47

mean r = .46 (SD = .15)Phonological awareness 27 Median r = .42

mean r = .46 (SD = .13)

Early Literacy-Related SkillsReading "readiness"

Letter identification

Concepts of print

21 Median r = .56mean r = .57 (SD = .12)

24 Median r = .53mean r = .52 (SD = .14)

7 Median r = .49mean r = .46 (SD = .20)

NOTE: Only studies with sample sizes of 30 or more were considered. At leastone of the risk factors of interest had to be assessed initially when the children werewithin about one year of beginning formal schooling in reading, and at least oneassessment of reading skills had to be obtained after one, two, or occasionally threeyears of instruction. If a word recognition measure was used in a prediction study,its correlation(s) with predictors was used; otherwise, a composite reading score or,rarely, a reading comprehension measure was instead accepted as the criterionvariable. When more than one correlation value per risk factor was available in agiven sample of children (because multiple reading assessments were conductedand/or because multiple measures of the predictor were used), the average correla-tion for the sample was used for aggregation. To obtain the average correlationsacross samples, therefore, each contributing sample contributed only one indepen-dent observation. SOURCE: adapted from Scarborough (1998).

.1.nU


related to speech production (Kamhi and Catts, 1986; Kamhi et al.,1988). Somewhat weaker associations with reading are obtainedwhen "discrete" naming (response time to name an individual stimu-lus) rather than "serial" naming is measured, suggesting that thenaming speed problems of poor readers involve more than just diffi-culty in retrieving and producing item names. A full understandingof the relationship between speeded naming and reading remains tobe determined.

Studies have also been made of the semantic, morphological, andsyntactic skills of kindergartners. Receptive language measures (sen-tence comprehension) that emphasize the understanding of complexsyntactic and morphological forms have been more successful pre-dictors than other (or unspecified) kinds of receptive measures (Table4-1).

Expressive language (production) measures, which include meanlength of utterance, sentence completion, tasks requiring the child tofill in morphological markers, and others, are about equally stronglypredictive of reading as receptive language. It should be noted,however, that the goal in these studies has been to predict readingachievement during the first few school grades, when the emphasis isprimarily on the acquisition of word recognition and decoding skillsrather than on the comprehension of challenging material.

Overall Language In examining the connection between measures ofoverall language ability and future reading achievement, the highestaverage correlation has been found when a broad composite indexof language abilities has been used. Since only four studies havetaken this approach, these findings can be considered promising butnot conclusive at this point.

Phonological Awareness Phonological awareness, or phonologicalsensitivity, is the ability to attend explicitly to the phonological struc-ture of spoken words, rather than just to their meanings and syntac-tic roles. This metalinguistic skill involves treating language as theobject of thought, rather than merely using language for communi-cation.

2


Given the importance of phoneme-letter mapping in the Englishalphabetic writing system, phonological awareness would be ex-pected to be an excellent predictor of the future reading skills ofkindergartners, particularly when the child's appreciation of thesubsyllabic or phonemic structure of words is measured. This pre-dictive correlational relationship has been examined in 27 researchsamples from 24 studies (Table 4-1). On average, phonologicalawareness (r = .46) has been about as strong a predictor of futurereading as memory for sentences and stories, confrontation naming,and general language measures.

When classificatory analyses are conducted, phonological aware-ness in kindergarten appears to have the tendency to be a moresuccessful predictor of future superior reading than of future readingproblems (Wagner, 1997; Scarborough, 1998). That is, among chil-dren who have recently begun or will soon begin kindergarten, fewof those with strong phonological awareness skills will stumble inlearning to read, but many of those with weak phonological sensitiv-ity will go on to become adequate readers (Bradley and Bryant,1983, 1985; Catts, 1991a, 1996; Mann, 1994; also see discussion ofthe reciprocity between phonological awareness and reading pre-sented in Chapter 2).

In sum, despite the theoretical importance of phonological aware-ness for learning to read, its predictive power is somewhat muted,because, at about the time of the onset of schooling, so many chil-dren who will go on to become normally achieving readers have notyet attained much, if any, appreciation of the phonological structureof oral language, making them nearly indistinguishable in this regardfrom children who will indeed encounter reading difficulties downthe road.

Acquired Knowledge of Literacy

Even before children can read in the conventional sense, mosthave acquired some information about the purposes, mechanics, andcomponent skills of the reading task. For some children, opportuni-ties for acquiring this sort of information abound, whereas othershave relatively little relevant exposure (McCormick and Mason,

2 7


1986). Therefore, by the time children are about to begin school,they vary considerably in how much they already know about booksand reading. Researchers have tested children's reading readiness,letter identification, and concepts of print to determine whether dif-ferences in these abilities can predict differences in future readingachievement.

Reading Readiness Reading readiness is a term used by both re-searchers and educators to mean accomplishment of skills presumedto be prerequisite to benefiting from formal reading instruction. It ismeasured by comparing the accomplishments of children in kinder-garten, where prereading skills are practiced, with their scores onstandardized reading tests in the primary grades. Reading readinesshas been shown to have a high correlation with reading ability:children who lack reading readiness at school entry have a hardertime learning to read in the primary grades. This has been found inprediction studies since 1950 (Hammill and McNutt, 1980;Scarborough, 1998).

Letter Identification Among the readiness skills that are tradition-ally evaluated, the one that appears to be the strongest predictor onits own is letter identification. Table 4-1 shows a summary of resultsfor longitudinal studies since 1975 that have included this measure.Just measuring how many letters a kindergartner is able to namewhen shown letters in a random order appears to be nearly as suc-cessful at predicting future reading, as is an entire readiness test.

The prediction of future reading by kindergarten measures ofletter identification and other early reading skills is quite substantial,accounting on average for nearly one-third of the variance in readingat grades 1-3. Nevertheless, the predictive accuracy derived fromusing such readiness measures alone may be lower than desirable forpractical purposes. For instance, in Scanlon and Vellutino's verylarge district-wide sample, letter knowledge was highly correlatedwith reading test scores and with teacher ratings of reading skill atthe end of first grade. The results obtained when letter identificationwas used to classify kindergartners as at risk versus not at risk areshown in Table 4-2.

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TABLE 4-2 Accuracy of Prediction of Grade 1 Reading Statusfrom Kindergarten Letter Identification Differences

Classification of Kindergartners According to Their Letter IdentificationSkills

A. Stricter kindergarten cutoff"at risk" "not at risk"(bottom (top 9010 percent) percent) Total

Grade 1 Reading Bottom 20 63 (correctly 131 "miss" errors 194(Teacher Ratings) percent predicted)

Top 80 37 "false alarm" 769 (correctly 806percent errors predicted)

100 900 1,000

B. More lenient kindergarten cutoff

"at risk" "not at risk"(bottom (top 7525 percent) percent) Total

Grade 1 Reading Bottom 20 118 (correctly 73 "miss" errors 191(Teacher Ratings) percent predicted)

Top 80 132 "false alarm" 677 (correctly 809percent errors predicted)

250 750 1,000

SOURCE: Adapted from Scanlon and Vellutino (1996)

The upper part of the table illustrates the pattern of predictionerrors when a rather strict criterion was adopted, that is, when letteridentification scores were used to identify the bottom 10 percent ofkindergartners as at risk. When approximately the bottom 20 per-cent of first graders were designated as having reading difficulties,83.2 percent of the grade 1 outcomes of the approximately 1,000


children would have been correctly predicted on the basis of letterknowledge. This is far better than chance and better than could beachieved using any other single kindergarten measure, but it stillmeans that a considerable number of prediction errors would occur.Of the 100 kindergartners who would have been identified as mostat risk (and who would presumably be targeted to receive interven-tion), 37 would have turned out not to have reading difficulties.Furthermore, of the 900 children deemed not to be at risk on thebasis of letter knowledge, 131 (14.5 percent) would have developedreading problems by the end of first grade. In other words, onlyabout one-third of the children who became the poorest readerswould have been selected initially for early intervention.

Table 4-2B also shows that, when a more lenient criterion wasused to classify kindergartners, such that 25 percent rather than 10percent were considered at risk, the "miss" rate would drop to amore acceptable level (10 percent). However, the overall accuracyof prediction would decrease (to 79.5 percent), and the rate of falsepositives would increase substantially, such that less than half of theat-risk group would be expected to develop reading difficulties.

To increase the accuracy with which kindergartners at greatestrisk can be identified, it may be useful to examine other individualrisk factors that may provide additional information about howreadily a child is likely to learn to read.

Concepts of Print The term "concepts of print" refers to a generalunderstanding of how print can be used rather than knowledge aboutspecific letters. It has been shown to have a moderate correlationwith reading ability in the primary grades. A recent study with evenhigher correlations used two types of measures related to print: onesrelated to understanding how print can be used and ones related tothe mechanics of the writing system (letter naming or letter-soundcorrespondences) (Stuart, 1995). It therefore appears promising thatthis combined approach will be more accurate in identifying childrenat risk, although more work on developing and validating these testbatteries is needed.

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Other Factors Measured at School Entry

Researchers have examined a number of other factors to seewhether there is a connection between them and future readingachievement. A number of longitudinal studies have examined kin-dergartners' speech perception or production abilities, as well asvisual and motor skills, nonverbal memory, age for grade, and sex.The results suggest that these measures are consistently weak predic-tors of subsequent reading differences. Likewise, nonverbal IQ scoresare poor predictors, but verbal (and overall) IQ is about equivalentin strength to receptive vocabulary and various other language mea-sures.

Prediction Based on Multiple Risk Factors

We have assessed individual child predictors to determinewhether any of these factors are sufficiently strongly related to read-ing difficulties that they can be used to help identify children whoshould receive prevention, intervention, or remediation. Note thatfrom the research we have different measures that predict morestrongly at different ages. Across the age span of birth throughgrade 3, cognitive deficiencies, hearing impairment, and a diagnosedspecific early language impairment have strong associations withfuture reading difficulties. Low IQ and lack of general languageability in infancy through kindergarten are associated with futurereading difficulties. Also, in kindergarten, reading readiness mea-sures, letter identification, concepts of print, verbal memory for sto-ries and sentences, confrontation naming, overall language, phono-logical awareness, and expressive vocabulary or naming skills areassociated with future reading ability.

From our review of child-based factors, it should be clear thatmany measurable individual differences among children at the outsetof schooling are reliably correlated with future reading achievementbut that most are not strong enough on their own to provide thelevel of predictive accuracy that would be desired for practical pur-poses. For this reason, many researchers have examined the com-bined effects of several or many predictors (e.g., Badian, 1982, 1994;

j3i


Butler et al., 1985; Felton, 1992; Bishop and Adams, 1990; Catts,1991b, 1993; Horn and O'Donnel, 1984).

Different researchers included very different sets of predictormeasures in their kindergarten batteries. Most used are some kindsof index of early print skills, such as letter knowledge, word recogni-tion, concepts of print, teacher ratings, and writing. Unfortunately,the other measures that appear to be the strongest single predictors(phonological awareness, sentence/story recall, confrontation nam-ing, and broad language indices) were rarely assessed in these stud-ies, so their potential contributions to prediction when combinedwith other variables remain unknown.

In most of the studies, multiple regression analyses yielded mea-sures of the strength of the relationship between kindergarten mea-sures and later reading achievement. On average, 57 percent of thevariance in reading scores was accounted for by the analysis. Incomparison, the mean effect size for readiness tests alone was con-siderably lower, indicating that adding other kinds of measures tothe traditional readiness tests can effectively strengthen the predic-tion. Moreover, it is impressive that the average correlation in thesestudies is about as strong as the year-to-year correlations amongreading achievement.

Classificatory analyses were conducted in three studies that hadthe kindergarten measure as the predictor of second or third gradereading achievement (Badian, 1982; Butler et al., 1985; Felton,1992). The percentage of children whose reading outcome status(reading disabled or nondisabled) was correctly predicted by kinder-garten risk status (based on the predictor battery) ranged from 80 to92 percent. These prediction analyses tended to achieve specificity(i.e., 80 to 92 percent of nondisabled readers had been classified asnot at risk in kindergarten) but somewhat lower sensitivity (i.e., 56to 92 percent of reading-disabled children had been classified ini-tially as at risk). Negative predictive power ranged from 89 to 99percent; in other words, on average, the proportion of not-at-riskchildren who nevertheless developed reading problems was low.Positive predictive power, however, ranged from 31 to 76 percent;that is, the proportion of at-risk children who turned out not to have


reading difficulties was substantial and was not markedly lower thanwhen predictions have been based on individual predictors.

In addition, two recent longitudinal studies are particularly in-formative about the prediction of reading ability for children withearly language impairment, based on their observed differences atabout the time of school entry (Bishop and Adams, 1990; Catts,1991, 1993). In both studies, 50 percent of the variance in readingachievement in the sample could be accounted for by a small set ofpredictors measured at about age 5. In Catts's study, measures ofphonological awareness and rapid serial naming of objects permitted83 percent of the children's outcomes to be correctly predicted, witha false positive rate of 32 percent and a false negative rate of 13percent. In the Bishop and Adams sample, the predictor set includedIQ and a combination of language ability indices. Clearly, the accu-racy of prediction in these samples was lower than in the population-representative samples.

The pattern of classification errors is quite similar across thesestudies and suggests that a fair number of children who will havereading difficulties do not obtain low enough scores to merit an at-risk designation on the basis of the kinds of kindergarten measuresthat were used (most typically literacy-specific knowledge, phono-logical awareness, and IQ). Whether the inclusion of sentence/storyrecall, naming vocabulary, and broader kindergarten batteries wouldhelp to pick up these cases is unknown, but it merits investigation onthe basis of the strong bivariate results.

Nevertheless, it is clear that batteries consisting of multiple mea-sures are becoming accurate enough to be very useful for identifyingindividual children who are at greater risk than their classmates.Close monitoring of these children (including follow-up assessmentsand observations by their kindergarten teachers) would permit themto receive additional assistance (if it turns out to be needed) as soonas possible, a highly desirable objective. Note, however, that indi-vidual testing of all kindergartners, which can be costly, probablyhas less utility in a school in which a large number of enteringstudents are at risk due to economic disadvantage or other grouprisk factors, discussed below. In that circumstance, the highest pri-


ority in allocating resources should address the goal of raising thegroup's overall level of achievement.

FAMILY-BASED RISK FACTORS

In many circumstances, early identification of children who willhave reading difficulties might proceed better by considering targetgroups rather than by assessing individuals. Demographic data sug-gest that a majority of reading problems tend to occur in childrenfrom poor families with little education, although they may of courseoccur in families that are neither poor nor undereducated. Also,being a member of a family in which reading difficulties have oc-curred before may also constitute a risk, whether for biological orenvironmental reasons. We review here a number of factors identi-fiable at the level of the family to assess their value in identifyingchildren who should receive prevention and intervention activities.

Family History of Reading Difficulties

Are children whose parents or older siblings have exhibited read-ing problems at greater risk for reading difficulties than are otherchildren of otherwise similar backgrounds? Decades of research onthe familial aggregation of reading problems suggest that this is so.Factors identified as family risk factors include family history ofreading problems, home literacy environment, verbal interaction,language other than English, nonstandard dialect, and family-basedsocioeconomic status (SES). It is important to bear in mind, how-ever, that family patterns of reading problems can be attributedeither to shared genetic or to shared environmental factors (see Chap-ter 1).

If a child is diagnosed with a reading disability, there is a higherthan normal probability that other family members will also havedifficulties with reading (see Finucci et al., 1976; Hallgren, 1950;Gilger et al., 1991; Vogler et al., 1985). The exact probability seemsto depend on a variety of factors, including the severity of the child'sreading disability. Furthermore, when the parents' diagnosis forreading disability is based on self-report, the family incidence tends

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to be lower than when the diagnosis is based on the direct measure-ment of parents' reading skills (Gilger et al., 1991).

Most studies of familial incidence first diagnose a child withreading disability using a severity criterion that would identify 5 to10 percent of children who have normal intelligence and have hadwhat for the majority of children is effective education. The investi-gators then attempt to use a similar severity criterion to diagnosereading disability in the parents. Evidence for the family nature ofreading disability is based on parental rates that are substantiallyabove the 5 to 10 percent rate estimated for the population.Scarborough (1998) computed the average rate of reading disabilityamong parents across eight family studies that included a total of516 families. The rate across studies varied from 25 to 60 percent,with a median value of 37 percent. Thus, all studies found rates forreading disability among parents of reading-disabled children thatwere considerably higher than expected in the normal population.The median proportion of reading disability among fathers (46 per-cent) was slightly higher than the median proportion among mothers(33 percent).

A few studies have attempted to estimate the prospective risk tothe child when parental disabilities are identified first (Finucci et al.,1985; Fowler and Cross, 1986; Scarborough, 1990). Those prospec-tive studies clearly show that parents' reading disabilities predict ahigher than normal rate of reading disabilities in their children (31 to62 percent versus 5 to 10 percent). Although parental reading dis-abilities are not completely predictive of their children's readingdisabilities, the substantially greater risk at least warrants very closemonitoring of their children's progress in early language and literacydevelopment. Results from two predictive studies (Elbro et al., 1996;Scarborough, 1989, 1990, 1991) suggest that whether these childrendevelop reading problems can be predicted from preschool measuresof language and literacy skills. If so, it would be potentially afford-able to assess that small subset of the population a year or twobefore kindergarten and to provide intervention to those with theweakest skills. Of course, to do so would require an effective meansof persuading parents with a history of reading problems to stepforward so that this service could be provided for their offspring.

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This sort of recruitment program has never been attempted, so itsfeasibility is unknown.

Home Literacy Environment

Families differ enormously in the level to which they provide asupportive environment for a child's literacy development. Mea-sures of the home literacy environment itself, therefore, may providean indication of an individual child's degree of risk for reading diffi-culties. Hess and Holloway (1984) identified five broad areas offamily functioning that may influence reading development. Thefirst four are:

1. Value placed on literacy: by reading themselves and encour-aging children to read, parents can demonstrate that they value read-ing.

2. Press for achievement: by expressing their expectations forachievement by their children, providing reading instruction, andresponding to the children's reading initiations and interest, parentscan create a press for achievement.

3. Availability and instrumental use of reading materials: lit-eracy experiences are more likely to occur in homes that containchildren's books and other reading and writing materials.

4. Reading with children: parents can read to preschoolers atbedtime or other times and can listen to schoolchildren's oral read-ing, providing assistance as needed.

The fifth area, opportunities for verbal interaction, is presentedin the next section. Although conceptually distinct and perhaps ana-lytically useful to consider separately, in practice these areas may behighly interrelated. In addition, home characteristics and social classcovary to a degree.

We review results of longitudinal prediction studies that haveexamined aspects of the home environment during children's earlyyears (birth to about age 5) in relation to the development of literacyknowledge and skills during the preschool years and especially to thechildren's subsequent academic achievement during the primary

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school grades. Few studies have derived overall measures of thequality of the preschool home environment.

Most longitudinal studies have looked at the home environmentof children at different ages and have identified contributors to lit-eracy development. Unless otherwise indicated, measures of homevariables were derived from parental interviews or questionnairesadministered at or shortly before the children entered kindergarten,and reading achievement was measured by standardized tests in thefirst and/or second grade (e.g., DeBaryshe, 1993; DeBaryshe et al.,1991; Mason, 1980; Mason and Dunning, 1986; Scarborough et al.,1991; Share et al., 1984; Thomas, 1984; Wells, 1985).

In summary, although there is considerable evidence that differ-ences in the home literacy environments of preschoolers are relatedto subsequent achievement differences, the strength of these correla-tions has tended to be modest, particularly when measured in largepopulation-representative samples (Bus et al., 1995; Scarboroughand Dobrich, 1994). Thus, a preschooler whose home providesfewer opportunities for acquiring knowledge and skills pertaining tobooks and reading is at somewhat higher risk for reading difficultiesthan a child whose home affords a richer literacy environment.

Opportunities for Verbal Interaction

The major dimension of variability for measures of verbal inter-action in the home is the dimension of quantity. It is now clear that,though poor and uneducated families provide much the same arrayof language experiences as middle-class educated families, the quan-tity of verbal interaction they tend to provide is much less (Hart andRisley, 1995). A lower quantity of verbal interaction constitutes arisk factor primarily in that it relates closely to lowered child vo-cabulary scores, as shown in one large prospective observationalstudy (Hart and Risley, 1995) and in a score of less rigorous studies.Because vocabulary is associated with reading outcomes (see Table4-1), it seems likely that reduced opportunities for verbal interactionwould function as a risk factor. Furthermore, language-rich experi-ences in the home are typically associated with activities (like bookreading, shared dinner table conversations) that themselves show

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only modest predictive value. It is possible, too, that the effects ofdifferences in verbal interaction may not show up until after theprimary grades, that is, when more high-level comprehension is re-quired.

Home Language Other Than English

When a preschool child's home language is not primarily En-glish, the ease of learning to read printed English is likely to beimpeded to some extent, particularly if reading instruction in Englishbegins before the child has acquired oral proficiency in English (seeAugust and Hakuta, 1997). One difficulty in trying to evaluate thedegree of risk associated with limited English proficiency is thatcultural as well as linguistic differences are also involved and mayintroduce other kinds of risk factors.

Many Hispanic children with limited English proficiency alsohave in common that their parents are poorly educated, that theirfamily income is low, that they reside in communities in which manyfamilies are similarly struggling, and that they attend schools withstudent bodies that are predominantly minority and low achieving.Not surprisingly, the other factors that have been proposed to ex-plain the typically low levels of academic achievement among His-panic students include many that have been cited as contributing tothe risk factors facing other minority groups, including low SES (andits many concomitant conditions), cultural differences between thehome and school (e.g., regarding educational values and expecta-tions), sociopolitical factors (including past and ongoing discrimina-tion and low perceived opportunities for minorities), and schoolquality.

In summary, low English proficiency in a Hispanic child is astrong indication that the child is at risk for reading difficulty. Thatlow reading achievement is a widespread problem among Hispanicstudents even when they are instructed and tested in Spanish, how-ever, indicates that linguistic differences are not solely responsiblefor the high degree of risk faced by these children and that the role ofco-occurring group risk factors, particularly school quality, homeliteracy background, and SES, must be considered.

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Use of a Nonstandard Dialect of English in the Home

Dialect differences among English speakers are widely recog-nizedfor example, a Boston accent or a Southern drawl. There isample evidence that listeners make stereotyped judgments aboutspeakers of particular dialects. Of greater concern here, however, isthat some dialect differences are viewed by some not as regionalvariations but as "incorrect" English, connoting aberrant or delayedlanguage development, poor learning, lazy or sloppy articulation, oreven purposeful insolence. Particularly under these conditions, thedifferences between a young child's dialect and the standard class-room English dialect may become a risk factor for reading difficul-ties.

With regard to reading instruction in particular, the risk forconfusion is considerable. For example, if the teacher is pointing outthe letter-sound correspondences within a word that is pronouncedquite differently in the child's dialect than in the teacher's, the lessoncould confuse more than enlighten. Moreover, teachers who areinsensitive to dialect differences may develop negative perceptions ofchildren and low expectations for their achievement, and they mayadjust their teaching downward in accord with those judgments.

Although these situations undeniably occur, there are many dif-ficulties in measuring the extent to which they happen and the de-gree to which their occurrence is correlated with, and may contrib-ute to, poor reading achievement. As is the case for children withlimited English proficiency, dialect differences are often confoundedwith poverty, cultural differences, substandard schooling, and otherconditions that may themselves impose very high risks for readingdifficulties. Even measuring the phenomena and their relation toachievement is confounded by the risk factor itself (Labov, 1966;Smitherman, 1977; Wolfram, 1991). The knowledge base, there-fore, is spotty. Some dialects have been researched more thoroughlythan others.


Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic differences are conventionally indexed by suchdemographic variables as household income and parents' educationand occupation, alone or in some weighted combination. In educa-tional studies, furthermore, the socioeconomic level of a school ordistrict may be estimated by the percentage of the enrollment quali-fying for federal lunch subsidies. (For a critique and a discussion ofsome recommended modifications of current methods of measuringSES, see Entwisle and Astone, 1994). Families rated low in SES arenot only less affluent and less educated than other families but alsotend to live in communities in which the average family SES is lowand tend to receive less adequate nutrition and health services, in-cluding prenatal and pediatric care. In other ways, too, low SESoften encompasses a broad array of conditions that may be detri-mental to the health, safety, and development of young children,which on their own may serve as risk factors for reading difficulties.Teasing apart the various aspects of the environment associated withlow SES is virtually impossible, and this should be borne in mind aswe discuss some particular risk factors that are linked to poverty.

As far back as Galton's (1874) studies of English scientists, SEShas consistently been shown to predict cognitive and academic out-comes (Hess and Holloway, 1984; White, 1982, Pungello et al.,1996). Although reliable, the relationship between SES and readingachievement is more complex than is generally realized. Consider,for example, how the findings of Alexander and Entwisle (1996)that low SES students progress at identical rates as middle and highSES students during the school year, but they lose ground during thesummershed light on the relationship between SES and readingachievement.

The degree of risk associated with the SES of the individualchild's family differs considerably from the degree of risk associatedwith the SES level of the group of students attending a particularschool. The evidence for this, and its implications for the preventionof reading difficulties among such students, is reviewed here. In anearlier section, we turned our attention to aspects of the home envi-

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ronment that may be responsible for the degree of risk posed to theindividual child from a low SES home.

In principle, low SES could potentially carry risk for readingdifficulty for an individual child and for entire groups of children.That is, low SES is an individual risk factor to the extent that amongchildren attending the same schools, youngsters from low-incomefamilies are more likely to become poorer readers than those fromhigh-income families. Low SES is also a group risk factor becausechildren from low-income communities are likely to become poorerreaders than children from more affluent communities. Because theformer are more likely to attend substandard schools, the correlationbetween SES and low achievement is probably mediated, in largepart, by differences in the quality of school experiences. It is thusnot very surprising that the strength of the correlation between SESand achievement is stronger when the unit of analysis is the schoolthan when the unit of analysis is the individual child (Bryk andRaudenbush, 1992, on multilevel measures of school effects).

When the average SES of a school (or district) and the averageachievement level of the students attending that school are obtainedfor a large sample of schools, a correlation between SES and achieve-ment can be calculated using the school as the unit of analysis. In ameta-analytic review of the findings for 93 such samples, White(1982) found that the average size of the correlation was .68, whichis substantial and dovetails with the conclusion of the section belowthat attending a substandard school (which is usually one whosestudents tend to be low in both SES and achievement) constitutes arisk factor for the entire group of children in that school.

When achievement scores and SES are measured individually forall children in a large sample, however, the strength of the associa-tion between SES and achievement is far lower. In White's (1982)meta-analysis, for instance, the average correlation between readingachievement and SES across 174 such samples was .23. Similarly,the correlation was .22 in a sample of 1,459 9-year-old studentswhose scores were obtained through the National Assessment ofEducational Progress (NAEP) evaluations (Walberg and Tsai, 1985).In a meta-analysis of longitudinal prediction studies, Horn and

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O'Donnell (1984) obtained a correlation that was only slightly higher(.31) between SES and early school achievement.

Similar SES findings were found in population-representativestudies in the United States and in other English-speaking countries(e.g., Alwin and Thornton, 1984; Estrada et al., 1987; Richman etal., 1982; Rowe, 1991; Share et al., 1984; Wells, 1985). In otherwords, within a given school or district, or across many districtswithin a country, SES differences among children are relatively weakpredictors of achievement. Thus, all else being equal, coming from afamily of low SES (defined according to income, education, andoccupation of the parents) does not by itself greatly increase a child'srisk for having difficulty in learning to read after school income levelhas been accounted for.

We are not saying here that SES is not an important risk marker.What we are saying is that its effects are strongest when it is used toindicate the status of a school or a community or a district, not thestatus of individuals. A low-status child in a generally moderate orupper-status school or community is far less at risk than that samechild in a whole school or community of low-status children.

Analysis of Family-Based Risk Factors

Parents' reading disabilities predict a higher than normal rate ofreading disabilities in their children (31 to 62 percent versus 5 to 10percent). Although parental reading disabilities are not completelypredictive of their children's reading disabilities, the substantiallygreater risk at least warrants very close monitoring of their children'sprogress in early language and literacy development. Lack of En-glish proficiency for a Hispanic child is a strong indication that he orshe is at risk for reading difficulty; however, linguistic differencesappear to be less responsible than other co-occurring group riskfactors, particularly school quality. In a similar manner, the occur-rence of family use of nonstandard dialect and individual family SEScovary considerably with factors such as school quality, which isdiscussed in the next major section of this chapter.

The quantity of verbal interaction in families constitutes a riskfactor primarily in that it relates closely to child vocabulary scores.


Findings related to home literacy environments are mixed. Many ofthe large-scale studies (Walberg and Tsai, 1984; White, 1982) of thecorrelations between home environment and school achievementhave focused primarily on samples of children in elementary school(or older). Because the focus of this report is on the prevention ofreading difficulties in young children, it is especially important toconsider the different roles that home environment may play at dif-ferent ages. In particular, the opportunities provided in the home forliteracy acquisition during the preschool years may contribute pri-marily to the child's acquisition of attitudes toward literacy, ofknowledge about the purpose and mechanics of reading, and ofskills (such as vocabulary growth and letter knowledge) that mayfacilitate learning when school instruction begins. Once the childhas begun to attend school and has started to learn to read, thecontributions of home and parents may be somewhat different; assis-tance with homework, listening to the child's efforts at reading aloud,the availability of resources such as a dictionary and an encyclope-dia, and so forth may be particularly important for fostering highachievement in school.

NEIGHBORHOOD, COMMUNITY, ANDSCHOOL-BASED RISK FACTORS

As is clear from our discussion of the family-based factors thatconstitute risks, it is extremely difficult to disentangle the effects offamily practices from factors such as the neighborhood where thefamily lives, the cultural and economic community of which thefamily is a part, and the school the child attends. In this section, wefocus on these issues, noting that more research has addressed school-ing rather than environmental risks to reading development.

A school in which students are performing at a much higher (ormuch lower) level than might be predicted using such standard mea-sures as family SES is often described as an "outlier." Studies ofoutlier schools have overwhelmingly concentrated on positive out-lier schools. Variously referred to as studies of "exemplary schools"(Weber, 1971), "unusually effective schools" (Levine and Lezotte,1990), and "high-flying" schools (Anderson et al., 1992), these posi-

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tive outlier studies have made important contributions to the field(for a review, see Stringfield, 1994). Of the studies that have exam-ined both positive and negative outlier schools, the largest and long-est running has been the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study(Stringfield and Teddlie, 1988, 1991; Teddlie and Stringfield, 1993).Classroom practices in ineffective schools (regardless of communitySES) were characterized by significantly lower rates of student timeon task, less teacher presentation of new material, lower rates ofteacher communication of high academic expectations, fewer in-stances of positive reinforcement, more classroom interruptions,more discipline problems, and a classroom ambiance generally ratedas less friendly (Teddlie et al., 1989).

Stringfield and Teddlie (1991) also conducted detailed qualita-tive analyses of the 16 case studies. Those analyses added signifi-cantly to the quantitative findings. Qualitative differentiations weremade at three levels: the student, the classroom, and the school.

At the level of student activities, ineffective schools were foundto be different from more effective, demographically matched schoolsin two ways. First, students' time-on-task rates were either uni-formly low or markedly uneven. Time on task is a good predictor ofachievement gain (Stallings, 1980). In some schools, very few aca-demic tasks were put before any students, and in other schools therewere marked differences in the demands made of students, with onlysome students being required to make a concerted academic effort.Students in positive outlier schools were more uniformly engaged inacademic work.

The second student-level variable was whether tasks were putbefore the students in what appeared to the students to be an orga-nized and goal-oriented fashion. When interviewed, students at inef-fective schools were much less likely to be aware of why they werebeing asked to do a task, how the task built on prior schoolwork,and how it might be expected to lay a foundation for future work.

At the classroom level, ineffective schools were characterized bya leisurely pace, minimal moderate-to-long-term planning, low oruneven rates of interactive teaching, and a preponderance of "dittosheets" and other relatively unengaging tasks. One of the mostreadily observable of the classroom differences was that teachers in

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ineffective schools simply failed to cover all of the district-mandatedmaterials by year's end. These students were not being providedequal "opportunity to learn." (For a discussion of the power ofopportunity to learn, see Muthen et al., 1991). Finally, ineffectiveschools were structured such that teachers almost invariably taughtin isolation from one another; there was little focus on building aprofessional knowledge base within the school. An additional fac-tor, class size, is related to achievement (Mosteller et al., 1996).

During the kindergarten year, there is evidence that teacher-childrelationships are important for later school achievement. Studieshave defined the significant qualities of these relationships (Howesand Hamilton, 1992; Howes and Matheson, 1992). One study useda scale based on these findings that describes teachers' perceptions ofdifferent qualities of their relationships with their students (Piantaand Steinberg, 1992). Another study compared results on this scaleand readiness tests and found that two global qualities of the teacher-child relationship, dependency or conflict, were related to poor per-formance (Birch and Ladd, 1997). Dependency is an index of thechild's overdependence on the teacher; conflict is an index of frictionin the teacher-child relationship. Closeness in the teacher-child rela-tionship was associated with better readiness performance. Close-ness is an index of warmth and open communication in the teacher-child relationship.

At the school level, ineffective schools were observed to be differ-ent from their demographically matched peers along seven dimen-sions: (1) they were not academically focused; (2) the school's dailyschedule was not an accurate guide to academic time usage; (3)resources often worked at cross-purposes instructionally; (4) princi-pals seemed uninterested in curricula; (5) principals were relativelypassive in the recruitment of new teachers, in the selection of profes-sional development topics and opportunities for the teachers, and inthe performance of teacher evaluations; (6) libraries and other mediaresources were rarely used to their full potential; and (7) there werefew systems of public reward for students' academic excellence. Simi-lar descriptions of a smaller set of negative outlier schools have beenprovided by Venezky and Winfield (1979).

.4. 4


SUMMARY

In this chapter we have examined information about risk factorsto determine what kinds of risk are so strongly related to readingdifficulties that they can potentially be used to identify children inneed of prevention and early intervention. It is clear that the rela-tionships between risk factors and reading achievement are continu-ous and probabilistic, not categorical or deterministic. Misleadingconclusions can be reached if risk factors are not interpreted in thislight. It must always be borne in mind that many children whoselanguage and literacy skills are weak at the outset of schooling be-come successful readers. A majority, however, do not, giving rise tothe correlational evidence we have reviewed. It bears repeating, also,that a causal relationship to reading has been shown for only some,but not all, of the measures that best predict future reading ability.Our review of prediction studies indicates clearly that no single riskfactor, on its own, is sufficiently accurate to be of practical use forpredicting reading difficulties. In combination, however, measuresof various kinds of riskindividual, familial, and demographiccan provide useful estimates of future achievement levels. Althoughprediction accuracy is far from perfect, errors of prediction can betolerated as long as children's progress is carefully monitored duringkindergarten and beyond. As discussed below, how different schoolsystems can best use the available information about risk indicatorsmust be tailored to their particular needs, goals, and resources.

Group Risk Factors

It is abundantly clear that some groups of children are at risk forreading difficulties because they are affected by any or all of thefollowing conditions:

1. They are expected to attend schools in which achievement ischronically low,

2. they reside in low-income families and live in poor neighbor-hoods,

3. they have limited proficiency in spoken English, and

t4


4. they speak a dialect of English that differs substantially fromthe one used in school.

Individual Risk Factors

The evidence also indicates that individual children, whether ornot faced with the adverse conditions just mentioned, may be atgreater risk than other otherwise-comparable children for readingdifficulties for any or all of the following reasons:

1. They are children of parents with histories of reading diffi-culty;

2. they have acquired less knowledge and skill pertaining toliteracy during the preschool years, either through lack of appropri-ate home literacy experiences and/or as a result of some inherentcognitive limitations;

3. they lack age-appropriate skills in literacy-related cognitive-linguistic processing, especially phonological awareness, confronta-tional naming, sentence/story recall, and general language ability;

4. they have been diagnosed as having specific early languageimpairment;

5. they have a hearing impairment; and6. they have a primary medical diagnosis with which reading

problems tend to occur as a secondary symptom.

Practical Use of This Information

Detecting problems early, in order to avoid other problems lateron, is the most practical course. The ease, cost, and reliability withwhich various risk factors can be measured are therefore a centralconcern.

Many of the group factors named above (e.g., a child is expectedto attend a school in which achievement is chronically low, the childlives in a low-income family and neighborhood) are easily accessiblemeasures. When they are present, effective preventions and earlyinterventions can be provided throughout the age span we are ad-dressing in this reportbirth through grade 3.

14.


Pediatric screening tools are effective in identifying children whohave severe sensory or developmental impairments (hearing impair-ment, specific language impairment). When these are present, pre-ventions and early interventions can be provided.

There is less practical utility in conducting population-wide indi-vidual screening of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who haveacquired less knowledge and skills pertaining to literacy during thepreschool years, either through lack of appropriate home literacyexperiences or as a result of some inherent cognitive limitations, orof those who lack age-appropriate skill in literacy-related cognitive-linguistic processing, for the purpose of identifying those who are atgreatest risk for reading difficulties. Some screening (i.e., languagemilestones) is already part of regular well-baby visits; in this case theinformation could help to define risk, especially when aggregatedwith other risk factors.

Kindergarten screening, in contrast, has become reasonably ac-curate when a combination of skills is measured (although the opti-mal combination is not yet identified). Ideally, screening proceduresshould be quick and inexpensive; they should identify all or mostchildren who have the specific problem; and they should mistakenlydetect none or few children who do not have the problem.

To achieve the goal of preventing reading difficulties, it will notbe feasible or appropriate to provide the same sort of intervention toall of these groups and individuals, although some kinds of pro-grams may be of benefit to all. In the next chapter, we review andevaluate the possible approaches that can be taken toward address-ing the problems of groups and individuals who have been identifiedas being at risk.

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PART III

Prevention and Intervention

What is currently known about preventing reading difficulties?The committee members' expertise and judgment were central inselecting the material and practices presented in Part III. Convergingevidence from experimental investigations, qualitative studies, corre-lational studies, and various quasi-experimental designs, presentedhere and in other parts of the report, led us to focus on particularpractices and programs.

In addition, a number of challenges are inherent in examiningprevention efforts:

The heterogeneity of children and the vagueness and incon-sistency of the definitions used to characterize the reading problemsof children;

the complexities of providing rich descriptions of the inter-ventions (within the space constraints of journal articles), especiallygiven the trend toward multifaceted multicomponent interventions;

inconsistencies across studies with regard to the measuresthat are employed, rendering comparisons risky;

the constrained nature of the measures selected that impedethe ability to determine more fully the impact of interventions;

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the intervals between the administration of measures thatpreclude the study of rate and degree of change over time;

how little we learn about concurrent instruction, despite thefact that many interventions are supplementary in nature; and

the difficulties inherent in characterizing and examining theeffects of nonintervention factors that can influence reading growth,including social, cultural, ethnic, environmental, and ecological fac-tors such as socioeconomic status, parent education, dialect, andfirst language.

Despite these limitations, important findings can be culled fromthe intervention literature, especially if we examine how the patternsemerging across these studies can contribute to understanding.

In Chapter 5, we present information on prevention efforts forinfants, toddlers, and preschoolers to ensure that children arrive atschool with the necessary skills and developmental attainments thatwill enhance their preparedness for, and receptiveness to, early read-ing instruction. Excellent reading instruction in the early grades is amajor prevention strategy. We therefore examine the major literacygoals for kindergarten and each of the primary grades in Chapter 6.

In some situations, organizational change is needed in a schoolso that effective reading instruction can take place. In Chapter 7, weaddress interventions targeted to changes in classrooms and entireschoolsfor example, reduction in class size or school restructur-ingand other initiatives such as the hiring of bilingual teachers inorder to be responsive to children whose home language is not En-glish.

There are some children for whom good instructional practicesand preschool experiences are not enough; children who requireextra instructional time because of persistent reading difficulties arediscussed in Chapter 8.

o

5Preventing Reading Difficulties

Before Kindergarten

Americans want their children to start school ready to learn, agoal that includes preparedness for reading instruction. As we dis-cussed in Chapter 4, among those children who are likely to beginschool less prepared to learn to read are (1) children living in low-income communities; (2) children with limited English proficiency;(3) preschool children slated to attend an elementary school whereachievement is chronically low; (4) children suffering from specificcognitive deficiencies, hearing impairments, and early language im-pairments; and (5) children whose parents have a history of readingproblems. Children who are particularly likely to have difficultylearning to read in the primary grades are those who begin schoolwith less prior knowledge and skill in certain domains, most notablyletter knowledge, phonological sensitivity, familiarity with the basicpurposes and mechanisms of reading, and language ability.

In this chapter, we discuss research findings on how the variousworlds in which infants and toddlers live affect the development oftheir ability to learn to read. We begin by discussing the role ofparents and caregivers, including both the beliefs they hold concern-ing reading and literacy and the behaviors they engage in with theirchildren in support of literacy development. We then discuss the

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literature on preschool environments and their contributions to read-ing skills development. Next we discuss biological and physicalconditions and their effects on reading ability development. Wepresent information on clinic- and pediatrician office-based literacydevelopment efforts. Finally, we examine how children with physi-cal and cognitive impairments have been aided in their efforts tolearn to read.

PARENTAL AND FAMILY INFLUENCES

Adults who live and interact regularly with children can pro-foundly influence the quality and quantity of their literacy experi-ences. A wide range of factors in turn affect the nature of theseinteractions, including the parents' attitudes and beliefs about read-ing and literacy, the children's motivation for reading, the opportu-nities parents provide their children and their actual behaviors withthem, and the parents' own reading and literacy ability levels.

Parents' Beliefs and Attitudes

There is increasing evidence that parental beliefs and attitudesregarding literacy and reading in particular influence children's lit-eracy development (DeBaryshe, 1995; Baker et al., 1995; Spiegel,1994). The values, attitudes, and expectations held by parents andother caregivers with respect to literacy are likely to have a lastingeffect on a child's attitude about learning to read. The socioemo-tional context of early literacy experiences relates directly tochildren's motivation to learn to read later on. Some researchershave found that parents who believe that reading is a source ofentertainment have children with a more positive view about readingthan do parents who emphasize the skills aspect of reading develop-ment (Baker et al., 1997). Another study found that children whoview school learning as irrelevant to life outside school are less mo-tivated to invest time and effort in learning to read (Purcell-Gates,1994; Stipek et al., 1995).

PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES BEFORE KINDERGARTEN 139

Parental Behaviors

Box 5-1 is an example of how some parents interact with theirchildren during literacy activities. Asking and responding to ques-tions is a principal aspect of parent-child interactions about text(Durkin, 1966). The frequency and manner of responding tochildren's questions is therefore an important parental influence onearly reading ability (Tea le, 1978). A study of the interactions dur-ing parent-child reading revealed that at least a thousand questionsabout print and books were asked by two children over a period ofseveral years (Yaden et al., 1984). When parents are shown how tobecome more responsive and "dialogic" during shared reading, gainsin their children's skills have been recorded (e.g., Whitehurst et al.,1994).

Aspects of literacy likely to be influenced by the family and homeenvironment include print awareness, concepts, and functions;knowledge of narrative structure; literacy as a source of enjoyment;and vocabulary and discourse patterns (Snow and Tabors, 1996;Baker et al., 1995; Clay, 1975; Burns and Casbergue, 1992; Taylor,1983; Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). Studies of children's earlylanguage development indicate that parent-child influences are re-ciprocal: children influence the ways that adults behave towardthem, and adults influence children's learning experiences and op-portunities (Lewis and Feinman, 1991; Belsky et al., 1984).

Parents who believe their children are interested in reading aremore likely to provide abundant print-related experiences than par-ents who do not perceive such interest (Hiebert, 1981). Parents'interpretations of children's interest in print, however, are partly afunction of their expectations of young children's capabilities ingeneral. For example, one parent may judge a child to be interestedonly if the child asks to have a story read; another parent may judgea child to be interested if he or she expresses pleasure when theparent offers to read a story. Children's interest may also be afunction of the kind of reinforcement received for involvement withprint in the past (Hiebert, 1986).


BOX 5-1An Example of Parent-Child Literacy-Oriented

Interactions

A visit to the home of Jaime, 5, and Danny, 3:

Danny has just gotten up from a nap and is lying on the floor, not quiteawake yet; Jaime has been watching Mister Rogers and is playing with hisblocks and dinosaurs in the living room. In the corner there is a little book-shelf with 20 or so children's books, including three that are due back to thelibrary the next day. (Making sure they are back in time will be Mom's job,since it is her day off from work.) There are also some puzzles, a magneticboard with letters, and a canvas bag filled with plastic farm animals. Dad issitting on the sofa, reading the newspaper. In a few hours, after the boys'mother comes home from work, he will be leaving for his job as a nightguard.

Dad takes the boys into the kitchen for some juice and crackers. As theyfinish he asks them if they want to hear a story.

"Yes!" they both say.

"Let's read Tacky the Penguin," Jaime says.

"No, I want the caterpillar," Danny whines.

"No! We read that last time!" Jaime says.

Before they can continue arguing Dad steps in. "Cut it out you guys; we'llread them both. We read The Hungry Caterpillar last time, right? So let'sstart with Tacky, and then we'll read the caterpillar story, OK'?"

The boys seem satisfied with this. They go back to the living room and siton either side of their father as he begins to read the story of a funny pen-guin named Tacky. The boys listen intently, sometimes asking questionsabout something that catches their interest in the pictures. Their fatheranswers; sometimes he says he doesn't know. Danny has apparently for-gotten he wanted the caterpillar story; he too is engrossed and recites therhyming lines and claps the beat as his father reads them. They finishTacky and then read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

"OK, guys, I've got some stuff to do, then I'm going to start making dinnerbefore Mom comes home. You can play here or in your room. I don't wantto hear any fighting, OK?" Dad goes to the kitchen, gets a stack of bills andhis checkbook from the drawer, and sits at the table to write checks.

Jaime stays in the living room and plays with his blocks and dinosaurs.

Danny follows Dad into the kitchen. "I want to write!" he says.

"You want to write, too?"

"Yeah," Danny says.

Dad gets a blank piece of paper and a not-too-sharp pencil and puts it nextto him. "OK, sit here and write with me."


Danny climbs on a chair and takes up the pencil. He begins to write, intent-ly, and makes a series of squiggles:

"Hey, buddy, that's pretty good," Dad says. "What did you write?"

Danny uses the eraser end of the pencil as a pointer and sweeps slowlyacross the marks he has made. "Daaa....nnnn....yyy," he says, slowly anddeliberately. Danny had seen his brother, who was learning to write hisname, do the same thing many times.

"How do you write Daddy?" Danny asks.

His father writes it for him and then continues writing checks.

Danny writes a little longer and then goes to join his brother in the livingroom, who by this time has tired of blocks and dinosaurs and is looking at abig book of nursery rhymes from around the world. He has heard some ofthese so many times he has memorized them and is reciting them quietly tohimself as he points with his finger in the general vicinity of the words he issaying. Danny listens.

Jaime, suddenly aware of his audience, holds the book up, as his kindergar-ten teacher does, and "reads" to his younger brother.

Danny listens for a few minutes, then says, "I want to read!"

Jaime, a little impatient, says, "Danny, you can't read yet. Look, this is an A,this is an M . . ." and he points to letters that he can recognize on the page.

Danny listens and watches. He starts to make another plea for a turn toread when they hear the key in the latch.

"Mom's home!" Jaime says. He drops the book, and both boys go runningto the front entrance.

In the next few hours, the family will have dinner, talk about how the daywent, and then Dad will leave for work. Mom will clean up the dinner dishes,play with the boys, and give them a bath.

Finally, just before bed time, they climb into Jaime's bed and Mom tells theboys to choose a book to read for a bedtime story. The boys again argueover what book she will read, and each boy takes a different one from theshelf they have in their room.

"I know," Mom says, "Let's finish Frog and Toad, since we've got to take itback to the library tomorrow."

"Yeah!" both boys say almost in unison, and they run to the living room toget one of the library books.

"Hey, don't run!" Mom calls out. But it's too late; they're already in the livingroom arguing over who is going to take the book to Mom.

5-1


Snow and Tabors (1996) describe four mechanisms of inter-generational transfer of literacy: (1) simple and direct transfer, (2)participation in literacy practice, (3) enjoyment and engagement,and (4) linguistic and cognitive mechanisms. Simple transfer in-cludes activities such as storybook reading and participation in writ-ing shopping lists. Parents reading to and with childrencalled dy-adic book readinghas been widely studied (e.g., Chomsky, 1972;Laosa, 1982; Anderson et al., 1985; Tea le and Sulzby, 1986); it hasbeen identified as a source of knowledge about print (Clay, 1979),about letters (Burgess, 1982), and about the characteristics of writ-ten language (Feitelson and Goldstein, 1986; Purcell-Gates, 1988).Print-rich environmentswhich include the presence of such itemsas magnetic refrigerator letters, posters, writing materials for mak-ing lists and memoranda, and newspapers and books in the home, aswell as parent-child attention to environmental printhave beenlinked to children's acquisition of an awareness of print (Goodman,1986; Harste et al., 1984).

Literacy practice involves children learning the functional uses ofliteracy as they engage in a variety of purposeful literacy acts in theeveryday life of the family. Key to this means of literacy learning isparents' modeling of literacy as useful in solving problems and theestablishment of social literacy practices in which children can par-ticipate as a functional and important part of their lives. Childrenlearn from parents how to use literacy to engage in problem-solvingactivities (Goodman, 1986). Edwards (1995) has demonstrated theeffectiveness of parent coaching in holding children's attention, ask-ing questions, interacting with text-relevant comments, and provid-ing feedback to their children. Those who view literacy as socialpractice argue that children learn the purposes of literacy in thefamily setting, although they may differ from family to family(Leichter, 1974; Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines, 1988).

Enjoyment and engagement are another way that parents trans-fer literacy skills to their children. Enthusiasm about literacy activi-ties is suggested by many researchers as a route to development ofthe child's active engagement in literacy tasks (Snow and Tabors,1996; Baker et al., 1995). Activities such as family storybook read-ing promote positive feelings about books and literacy (Taylor and

1.56


Strickland, 1986). Lancy and Bergin (1992) found that childrenwho are more fluent and positive about reading came from parent-child pairs who viewed reading as fun, kept stories moving with a"semantic" rather than a strict "decoding" orientation, and encour-aged questions and humor while reading. Children who learn fromtheir parents that literacy is a source of enjoyment may be moremotivated to persist in their efforts to learn to read despite difficul-ties they may encounter during the early years. Pretend readingsessions, attempting to identify words and letters on t-shirts andcereal boxes, and play with educational toys were reported by par-ents as important activities in which their children engaged withprint. Baker et al. (1995:245) note that "Parents' descriptions oftheir children's early efforts to engage in literacy activities oftenreflected amusement but also suggest awareness of the value of suchbehaviors."

Finally, parents help children to develop oral language precur-sors to literacy by means of linguistic and cognitive mechanisms.Parents in the Baker et al. (1995) study reported that their childrenenjoyed singing songs heard on the radio or television and chantingnursery rhymes and other rhyming games. Heath (1983) reportedthat the children of low-income families are often exposed to elabo-rate narratives in the course of their everyday lives. She suggestedthat this experience nurtures a high level of familiarity with thestructural organization of stories. Mealtime conversation also pro-vides an opportunity for children to acquire knowledge about narra-tives when family members recount the day's activities, thus givingchildren an experience that is of well-documented value in learningabout language and communication (Snow and Tabors, 1993).

Teaching Parents to Teach Children

Parent-oriented prevention and early intervention services pro-vide alternatives for improving outcomes in language and literacydevelopment. These programs are for parents of young children,whether or not the children receive early childhood center-basedservices. In general, the services include regularly scheduled homevisits by a parent educator. The curriculum used includes informa-


tion on child development, guidance in fostering a child's develop-ment, and school readiness. Access to resource materials and devel-opmental and sensory screening is often provided.

Parents as Teachers is one such program for parents beginning inthe third trimester of pregnancy and continuing until the children are3 years old (National Diffusion Network, 1996). At age 3, childrenin the program performed significantly better than comparison chil-dren on tests of cognition and language. Their parents demonstratedmore knowledge of the content in the program curriculum. At fol-low-up in first grade, program children scored significantly betterthan the comparison group on standardized tests of reading ability.At grade 1, parents who participated in the program were found tobe significantly more involved in their children's school experiencethan were comparison-group parents.

Another program, the Home Instruction Program for PreschoolYoungsters (HIPPY), is a home-based instruction program in whichparents serve as the child's first teacher. The program provideschildren with school readiness skills and makes reading one of manyactivities parents and children do together. In examining four parenteducation models that included HIPPY, researchers found that theyall included effective components addressing cultural awareness, in-teragency collaboration, and the development of close ties betweenhome and school (Baker and Piotrkowski, 1996). Weaknesses in theprograms included lack of theoretical support, insecure funding, anda lack of updated and appropriate curricula.

Although the programs described above assess language or lit-eracy outcomes, their focus is not specific to language and literacy. Anumber of programs do target language and literacy. A trainingprogram on dialogic reading, developed by Whitehurst et al. (1994),in essence reverses the roles between adult and child. When mostadults share a book with a preschooler, they read and the childlistens. In dialogic reading, the adult helps the child become theteller of the story. Small-group dialogic reading took place in theclassroom (e.g., four children to one adult, three to five times perweek), and one-on-one dialogic reading took place at home with thesame books used in the classroom. The fundamental reading tech-nique is a short interaction between a child and the adult. The adult

15E


prompts the child to say something about the book, evaluates thechild's response, expands the child's response by rephrasing andadding information to it, and repeats the prompt-evaluate sequenceto make sure that the child has learned from the expansion.

Compared with a control group of children not participating inthe program at school and at home, children who participated madesignificant gains in their development of language skills and conceptsof print. In addition, parents' participation in the at-home compo-nent of the program strongly affected the degree to which individualchildren profited from the program. Follow-up testing indicatedthat the program intervention, which took place in preschool, per-sisted through the end of kindergarten. The program primarily af-fects language, and no effects were seen on first- and second-gradereading achievement (Whitehurst, 1997). Thorough follow-up test-ing has not taken place beyond the second grade.

Another researcher studied literacy-specific intervention withparents whose children attended a public school Head Start program(Neuman et al., 1995). Books were provided to families, and parentswere taught to engage in storybook reading strategies that enhancedinteraction with the child and to extend the reading to include pre-cursors to reading. One part of the intervention included parentgroups, and the other part involved parents reading the books totheir children. Parents' reading sessions with children were audio-taped so that the children could listen to their parents reading tothem on the tape. Results indicated that the storybook readingbecame more interactive, with children contributing at increasinglevels. Children's concept of print scores and receptive languagescores increased compared with children who did not receive theintervention.

Family Literacy Programs

Family literacy programs seek to enhance literacy within fami-lies. In contrast, an intergenerational literacy program fuses adultliteracy with preschool programs to enhance the literacy growth ofadults and children who may be unrelated (Daisey, 1991).

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The impetus for family-based programs is broad, ranging from(a) research on the positive influence that family literacy experiencescan have on subsequent literacy achievement in school (Schickedanz,1981; Snow and Goldfield, 1983; Tea le and Sulzby, 1986), (b) therelationships between parents' expectations and attitudes regardingeducational attainment and children's achievement (Fingeret, 1990),and (c) the widely held belief that it is difficult for a classroom orschool to make up for the lack of literacy activities in the family. Areview of family-based literacy projects quickly reveals the com-plexities inherent in attempting to describe, much less evaluate, theseprograms. The variations among them are enormous; in fact, ahallmark of a successful program is that it is tailored to the needs ofthe specific population it serves.

An example of a family-based literacy program is the Even StartFamily Literacy Program, which was established in 1989 with thegoal of integrating early childhood education and adult educationfor parents into a unified program. The program was evaluated overa period of several years in the mid-1990s by means of a large-scalenational survey called the National Evaluation Information Systemand an in-depth study that provided longitudinal information on afew programs through randomized experimental designs. Evalua-tors examined short-term effects on children, parents, and families.Five of the measures used related to children's reading ability. TheEven Start family literacy program had the greatest impact on avail-ability of reading materials in the home, parents' expectations oftheir children's success in school, and skills related to children'sreadiness for school, although researchers evaluating the programcautioned that it is difficult to attribute the positive effects to theprogram alone.

In a review of the literature, as well as firsthand studies of asample of 11 Even Starts family literacy projects, researchers note

1 Even Start refers to legislation that was passed in 1988, appropriating funds to initiate,continue, and evaluate family literacy projects. A total of 75 grants were awarded by the U.S.Department of Education in 1989 to local education agencies, which, in hand with Head-Start, Adult-Basic-Education, and other community based programs, were to provide inter-generational literacy experiences.

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four features critical to the success of these programs (DeBruin-Parecki et al., 1997). The first relates to steps taken to ensureparticipation, which range from the provision of child care and trans-portation, to addressing emotional barriers such as fear of schooland low self-esteem, to recognizing, respecting, and incorporatingcultural and familial differences. A second critical feature is the useof a curriculum that is both meaningful and usefulthat includes,for example, English-language instruction, workplace preparation,and modeling and coaching of parent-child literacy activities. Thethird critical feature is the participation of a stable and capable staffwho bring diverse expertise to this work. The final critical feature isthe necessary funding to ensure that these programs can be sustainedover time.

A research synthesis on family literacy programs notes that"documented research consistently supports the finding that partici-pants in family literacy programs are benefited by increased positiveliteracy interactions in the home between parent and child as a cor-relate of their participation" (Tracey, 1994). Projects that rely solelyon the family to provide intervention for their young children, notworking in conjunction with center-based programs, have had onlymoderate success; the most effective intervention, taking place dur-ing infancy, was a well-designed program using professionals (AbtAssociates, 1995).

PRESCHOOLS

Preschool Classrooms as Language and Literacy Environments

Having examined family literacy programs in which one compo-nent is preschool instruction, we now review the research on pre-schools more generally. Most studies that examine the quality ofpreschools use broad-gauge tools that include language and literacyas only one small portion of the assessment. Such studies have foundthat it is precisely on measures of the language environment thatpreschool programs serving poor children scored in the inadequaterange.

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A study of children in North Carolina public preschools foundthat they had lower ratings on language and reasoning measuresthan for other aspects of the Early Childhood Environment Rating(Bryant et al., 1993). Scores were particularly low for items involv-ing dramatic play (a context for rich language use), cultural aware-ness, and professional opportunities, suggesting that the children'slanguage development needs are not being served optimally and thatmechanisms for improvement are unavailable. A study of 32 HeadStart classrooms similarly found the lowest scores for language andreasoning on the same test (Bryant et al., 1993).

Two other studies have also focused on the language environ-ments in preschool classrooms. The Bermuda Day Care Studyshowed that quality of conversation in the classroom and amount ofone-on-one or small-group interactions that children engaged in werehighly related to language measures (Phillips et al., 1987). Also, forlow-income children at age 4, the quality of group book readingexperiences was found to be correlated with kindergarten languageand literacy measures (Dickinson and Smith, 1994). Cognitivelychallenging conversation and the use of a wide vocabulary by teach-ers were correlated with the children's subsequent language and lit-eracy development (Dickinson et al., 1993).

The quality of adult-child discourse is important, as is the amountof such interaction. One study found that the amount of cognitivelychallenging talk that children experience is correlated with theamount of time they talk with adults (Smith and Dickinson, 1994).Another study also found an association between conversationalpartner and topic (Michell and Stenning, 1983). Given the impor-tance of adult-child interaction, it is disturbing that some childrenmay rarely interact with a preschool teacher, receiving little or noindividualized attention (Kontos and Wilcox-Herzog, 1997; Layzeret al., 1993). Modest enhancements of the quality of classroomexperiences show positive effects on children's language develop-ment and preliteracy skills (Whitehurst et al., 1994).

Finally, Neuman (1996) studied the literacy environment in childcare programs. Day care providers were targeted because of theirrole in providing care for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers; inmany situations, the language and literacy needs of these children


are not the caretakers' primary concern. Traditional caretaking,such as keeping children safe, fed, and clean, are often the mainfocus. Yet many of these children are in special need of early lan-guage stimulation and literacy learning.

Caretakers were given access to books and training on tech-niques for (a) book selection for children of different ages, (b) read-ing aloud, and (c) extending the impact of books. The program wasevaluated with a random sample of 400 3- and 4-year-olds whoreceived the intervention, as well as 100 children in a comparisongroup. Results showed that literacy interaction increased in theintervention classrooms; literacy interactions averaged five per hourbefore the intervention and increased to 10 per hour after the inter-vention. Before the intervention, classrooms had few book centersfor children; after the intervention, 93 percent of the classrooms hadsuch centers. Children with caretakers who received the interven-tion performed significantly better on concepts of print (Clay, 1979),narrative competence (Purcell-Gates and Dahl, 1991), concepts ofwriting (Purcell-Gates, 1996), and letter names (Clay, 1979) thandid children in the comparison group. At follow-up in kindergarten,the children were examined on concepts of print (Clay, 1979), recep-tive vocabulary (Dunn and Dunn, 1981), concepts of writing (Purcell-Gates, 1996), letter names (Clay, 1979), and two phonemic aware-ness measures based on children's rhyming and alliteration capacity(Maclean et al., 1987). Of these measures, children in the reading-aloud group performed significantly better on letter names, phone-mic awareness, and concepts of writing.

Preschool Can Make a Difference

The number of months that children spend in preschool has beenfound to be related to achievement test scores in second grade, be-havior problems in third grade, and school retention in kindergartenthrough third grade (Pianta and McCoy, 1997). Children with morepreschool experience had higher achievement scores and fewer be-havior problems and were less likely to be required to repeat a grade.The National Center for Education Statistics (1995) found that pre-school experience was associated with children's literacy and

1 6 `,


numeracy skills. Our review focuses on preschool programs withoutcomes on language development and literacy.

Given the pervasive evidence of differences in language and emer-gent literacy skills associated with class, culture, and linguistic back-ground, it is heartening that preschool has been shown to benefitchildren's performance in domains that relate to school success(Haskins, 1989; Lee et al., 1988; Mc Key et al., 1985). A recentcomprehensive review of early childhood programs for children fromlow-income families concludes that preschool programs can producelarge effects on IQ during the early childhood years and sizablepersistent effects on achievement, grade retention, special education,high school graduation, and socialization (Barnett, 1995).

Head Start is the most widely known early intervention programfor economically disadvantaged children, although state and Title Iprograms provide services for substantial numbers of children. HeadStart programs provide or arrange comprehensive services for chil-dren and families, including a "developmental" curriculum, psycho-logical and social services, nutrition and health, and parent involve-ment and education.

Programs designed for children in poverty, including large-scalepublic programs, were found to produce immediate effects for read-ing achievement of about 0.5 standard deviation (White and Casto,1985; Mc Key et al., 1985; Ramey et al., 1985). On average, theseestimated effects declined over time and were negligible several yearsafter children exited the programs. However, some programs pro-duced sizable gains that persisted into the school years. Although avariety of different approaches produced positive effects, the magni-tude of initial effects appears to be roughly related to a program'sintensity, breadth, and attention to the involvement of the children'sparents (Bryant et al., 1994).

An example of a comprehensive preschool program with a ran-domized design is the Abecedarian Project (Campbell and Ramey,1994). Infants in the experimental group received enriched day carethat stressed language and cognitive development through age 5. Atfollow-up testing, the children in the experimental group had statis-tically significant higher reading achievement from age 8 (grade 3)through age 15 (grade 8).

I6


Helping Preschoolers Develop Phonological Awareness

As reviewed earlier in this volume, phonological awareness playsa crucial role in learning to read, and the development of this meta-phonological ability typically begins by about age 3 and improvesgradually over many years. Because the wide differences amongkindergartners in this skill are predictive of future reading achieve-ment, researchers have begun to investigate the possibility of reduc-ing those differences by enhancing the development of phonologicalawareness prior to the start of school. The results to date suggestthat this is a promising approach to reducing young children's riskfor future reading difficulties.

Is phonological awareness training helpful for improving thisability in 4- to 5-year-old preschoolers who are at risk for readingdifficulties? The available evidence suggests that it is. For instance,Brady et al. (1994) studied 42 inner-city children aged 4 to 5 years.At the outset, fewer than half could generate rhymes, and none couldsegment simple words into phonemes or read any words. The 21children who received training were closely matched to the 21 whodid not on receptive vocabulary, age, and initial phonological abili-ties. Training took place in small groups for a total of 18 hours overfour months, with three 20-minute sessions per week.

Exercises first directed the children's attention to rhyme (e.g.,"One, two, three. Come to me: Which two words rhyme?"), segmen-tation of morphemes and syllables (e.g., "Say a little bit of 'butterfly. . . Can you say 'butterfly' without the `but' ? "), categorization ofsounds (e.g., "Which word doesn't belong: mop, top, pop, can ? "),and identification of syllables (e.g., "Do you hear 'doe' in 'window'?In 'doughnut'? In `candy' ? "). The next phase was devoted to illus-trating phonemic contrasts (e.g., /p/ vs. /b/) through exercises de-signed to allow the children to experience the relevant articulatorygestures (Lindamood and Lindamood, 1975) and through segmenta-tion and identification games at the phoneme level (e.g., "Say a littlebit of 'boat"; "Can you say 'boat' without the `lip-popper'?";"Which word starts with a lip-popper: 'pool' or `light'?"). Last, thephonemes in two- and three-phoneme words were segmented using a

16:


"say it and move it" procedure (Blachman, 1987). On the post-tests,12 of the 21 controls were still unable to generate any rhymes, andonly one could segment any words into phonemes. In contrast, allbut one of the trained group could generate rhymes, and six suc-ceeded in full phonemic segmentation. As will be reviewed later,methods such as these have produced increases in phonologicalawareness and in subsequent reading in samples of unselected kin-dergartners and first graders (Chapter 6) and beginning readers fromat-risk groups (Chapter 7).

Somewhat younger at-risk children have also been shown tobenefit from training in phonologically oriented instruction. Dorvalet al. (1980) selected 22 4-year-olds from one cohort of theAbecedarian Project (described above): 11 from the experimentalgroup (who received the preschool day care intervention) and 11(matched on familial risk factors) from the control group in thatstudy. The reading readiness component of that program includedindividual tutoring in phonological awareness and letter-soundknowledge, in brief sessions (3 to 10 minutes) twice per week over45 weeks. The training method, based on that of Wallach andWallach (1979), involved several steps, all of which were completedfor a single phoneme/letter before proceeding to the next one to belearned. The first steps involved oral exercises in phonologicalawareness alone: repeating aloud words beginning with the targetphoneme, with extra emphasis on enunciating the first phoneme(e.g., /b/-/b/-ball), choosing which of two pictures begins with thetarget phoneme, and identifying whether or not a picture begins withthat phoneme. Next, the letter corresponding to the target phonemewas introduced by having the child trace, and eventually draw, theletter. Additional steps required the child to match letters to picturesor spoken words on the basis of their beginning sounds, differentiat-ing the target item from two other phoneme/letter items that werepreviously trained.

On the post-test, for each of five phonemes in turn, five picturepairs were shown successively. The child was asked to name thepictures and then to point to the one that began with the phonemepronounced by the examiner. For the last two blocks of trials, thechild was also given two opportunities to identify the target pho-

1 6 6


neme. At the end of each block, knowledge of letter-phoneme asso-ciations was tested by asking the child to select which of three lettersrepresented the phoneme. On the phoneme recognition items, onwhich chance guessing would yield a score of approximately 50percent correct, the average for the trained group far exceeded thatof the controls (88 versus 58 percent correct); all but one of thetutored children were at least 78 percent correct, and all but one ofthe untrained children were less than 70 percent correct. The experi-mental group also outperformed the controls (62 versus 31 percent)on the letter recognition items (chance level = 33 percent). Finally,because the same training program had previously been used with 6-year -olds, a comparison could be made of the rates of progress dur-ing training for different age groups. It appeared that the amount ofbenefit per hour of tutoring was essentially equivalent for the 4- and6-year-old high-risk samples, indicating that little would be gainedby delaying instruction until school age.

Given that 4- and 5-year-olds, even those from high-risk back-grounds, can successfully be trained in phonological awareness andletter-sound associations, is this sufficient to permit a young child todiscover the alphabetic principle and use it to read simple words?This question was pursued in a series of clever experiments by Byrneand Fielding-Barnsley (1989). Their criterion for mastery of thealphabetic principle was success by a child in choosing, say, "mow"rather than "sow" as the pronunciation for the printed word "mow"after the child had been taught to read the words "mat" and "sat."(Only children with no prior knowledge of the relevant letters wereincluded.)

First, transfer was not achieved by children who could readily betrained to differentiate compound words (e.g., bus stop vs. door-stop) or pseudowords (bifsek vs. fotsek), indicating that learnedassociations at the morphemic/syllabic level do not transfer to thephonemic level. Second, neither was the criterion met by childrenwho were trained to the criterion in segmenting the initial phonemefrom the last part (rime) of numerous words beginning with therelevant phonemes (e.g., by asking the child to make a frog puppettalk in its funny way, saying "m . . . at," and "s . . . ad"), indicatingthat segmental awareness alone is not sufficient for discovery of the

1 6 ''


alphabetic principle. Third, even when these same children werethen trained to identify the first sounds (/m/ and /s/) of numerouswords, such that they could correctly say which of two words startedwith the same sound as "mat" (or as "sat"), transfer did not occur.That is, phonemic awareness was not sufficient for the emergence ofthe alphabetic principle. Finally, after these children were trained toassociate the letter M with /m/ and S with /s/, transfer did occur forthe children who had succeeded on the prior tasks. However, even ifthey mastered the letter-sound associations, children who had notsucceeded on the phonological awareness training did not meet thecriterion for knowing the alphabetic principle. In short, "neitherphonemic awareness nor knowledge of the correspondence betweenletters and phonemes is sufficient for the emergence of initial insightsinto the alphabetic principle. But both in combination seem . . . tofirmly promote its acquisition in otherwise preliterate children"(Byrne and Fielding-Barnsley, 1989:317).

Subsequent experiments of a similar nature demonstrated thatboth aspects of phonemic awareness segmentation and identity areusually necessary for successful transfer. That is, before childrendemonstrated mastery of the alphabetic principle, most needed toknow that /m/ is a component of /mat/, that words like /mat/ and /mow/ start with the same component, and that /m/ is symbolized bya particular graphic form.

Taken together, the results of these training studies indicate thatphonological awareness can be successfully enhanced through train-ing in young children who are not yet very advanced in metaphono-logical skill. The same techniques and exercises that have beendesigned for slightly older children (see Chapter 6) can, with littlemodification, apparently be used with children at least as young as 4years, and perhaps even earlier. It is also encouraging that substan-tial effects have been demonstrated with samples who are at risk forfuture reading difficulties due to economic disadvantage. To in-crease school preparedness of these children and those from other at-risk groups, however, it is clear that instruction in phonologicalawareness ought to be accompanied by training in letters and letter-sound associations also. Children who enter school with these corn-

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petencies will be better prepared to benefit from formal readinginstruction.

Program Quality of Preschools

The overall program quality in a child care setting has beenfound to be an important determinant of positive effects on languageand preliteracy skills (see Barnett et al., 1987, for a review). Theevaluation of public preschool programs in North Carolina foundevidence that participation in the programs reduced the degree ofdelay of high-risk children in communicative skills (Bryant et al.,1993). The quality of the preschool program attended was relatedto children's vocabulary scores at kindergarten, as well as to kinder-garten reading scores for boys only. These effects were found eventhough, in general, the preschool programs evaluated were of gener-ally mediocre quality. The analysis of children in Head Start classesby Bryant et al. (1993) showed that classroom quality was related tochild outcomes on measures of school readiness, independent of thequality of children's home environments.

Assessments of programs like CARE (Roberts et al., 1989; Wasiket al., 1990), the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP,1990; Brooks-Gunn et al., 1994), the Comprehensive Child Devel-opment Program (St. Pierre and Lopez, 1994), and Even Start (St.Pierre et al., 1993) have documented the enhanced value of high-quality classroom-based experiences for children in poverty, withbigger effects from more intensive and higher-quality programs, aswell as evidence for positive effects on language development inparticular.

How Universal Is the Impact of Preschools?

The evidence that preschool can have a beneficial effect onchildren's early language and literacy development is heartening, butwe need to know whether preschool experiences have similarly posi-tive results for all subgroups of children at risk. Low-income Afri-can American and Hispanic children, particularly Spanish-speakingHispanic children, have similar immediate benefits from preschool

6 c.


experiences as European American children; however, those benefitsare not maintained as the low-income African American and His-panic children progress through the early grades. An analysis ofdata from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows positiveeffects of Head Start attendance on European American children'svocabulary scores and a reduction in their grade retention, com-pared with siblings who did not attend preschool or who attendedpreschools other than Head Start (Currie and Thomas, 1995). Inthis analysis, positive effects of Head Start or of other preschoolexperiences were not found for African American children. Barnettand Camilli (1996), however, have presented a critique of thesefindings.

Important points to consider are that the African American chil-dren may be attending Head Start programs of lower quality, maysubsequently attend poor schools, or may have less developed vo-cabulary to begin with and thus need even more intensive interven-tions than the European American children. They may benefit lessfrom Head Start classrooms in which standard English is used be-cause they are more comfortable with a dialect of English (AfricanAmerican Vernacular English) that their caregivers are reluctant orunable to use, so that optimal adult-child communication is dis-rupted. Very little is known about the impact of speaking nonstand-ard dialects like African American Vernacular English on access tolearning in preschool or primary classrooms, a question we addressin Chapter 9.

Spanish-speaking children attending English-language preschoolsalso may face special problems. A recent study compared childrenfrom Spanish-speaking homes who were in English-medium HeadStart classrooms to those in a Spanish-medium pilot classroom andto their English-speaking classmates (Bronson, 1996, as cited inDickinson and Howard, 1997). The social adjustment of Spanish-speaking children in English-medium classrooms lagged behind thatof other children in the same classrooms, whereas that of the chil-dren in the Spanish-medium classroom was greatly advanced overboth groups. Given the power of preschool children's social devel-opment to predict long-range outcomes, including literacy (Cohen etal., 1995), these results are striking.

.17C


Of further concern is the risk that Spanish-speaking children willlose Spanish while acquiring English in all-English preschools(Fillmore, 1991). After immigration, the shift to English as a firstlanguage from generation to generation is a universal and inevitableprocess (Pedone, 1981). However, Hispanic families are experienc-ing a very rapid shift toward English monolingualism among chil-dren of immigrant parents, leading to difficulties in communicationacross generations within households.

Many would argue that Head Start is one factor in this shift.Head Start was initiated before the recent upsurge in immigration,and planning within Head Start has not yet articulated specific poli-cies for language-minority children comparable to those, for ex-ample, that guide services to non-English speakers in public elemen-tary schools (SocioTechnical Applications Research, 1996). Thesame report indicates that English is the language of instruction inmost Head Start classrooms. Within the Head Start community ofeducators and parents, developing readiness for school is oftenequated with learning English, despite the evidence that a strongbasis in a first language promotes school achievement in the secondlanguage (Cummins, 1979; Lanauze and Snow, 1989). Research isneeded to examine whether high-quality preschool experiences areequally beneficial to Spanish-speaking children when offered in En-glish as when offered in Spanish.

It is clearly the case that young children have an amazing capac-ity for language learning, including learning second or foreign lan-guages. Having a bilingual capability by learning English as a sec-ond language can be seen as an asset for anyone. However, the assetmay turn into a risk for young Hispanic children getting ready forreading, if learning a foreign language comes at the expense of build-ing on very early home language development in ways that promotethe metalinguistic experiences needed for alphabetic reading. Whentoddlers are stretching their language capacities, putting togethertheir native language expertise in ways that will promote their futuresuccess at reading, learning a second language cannot take the placeof learning with one's own first language. Pre-schoolers' experienceswith their own language allow, for example, phonemic sensitivity todevelop; the child can then experience the alphabetic insight and get

171


the idea needed for learning to read. The undeniable asset of asecond language need not be provided at a time or in a way thatcould create a risk to the child's preparation for reading.

HEALTH FACTORS AND PRIMARY PREVENTION

Performance at any age is the result of two categories of interrelatedfactors: biological integrity and environmental determinants. Recentresearch demonstrating the brain's susceptibility and responsiveness tochanges in its environment has made the distinction between biologicaland social influences increasingly complex and reciprocal. It has beenshown that developmental capacities can be enhanced by positive envi-ronmental stimuli, even in cases of early biological deficiencies (such asexposure to drugs or poor nutrition). For instance, Hawley et al.(1993) found that the single most powerful determinant of child out-comes for children who had been exposed to drugs before birth was thequality of their postnatal environment.

Programs have therefore been developed in hospitals, clinics, andcommunity centers to lower prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal risksfor mothers and their infants. These programs provide services suchas prenatal care, nutritional supplements for pregnant women andchildren, hospital-based services, and home visits to enhance naturalcaregiving. Table 5-1 presents information on a selection of preven-tion and intervention programs aimed at improving the chances ofat-risk infants. By enhancing children's health and developmentalstatus, interventions at this early age are effective in improving theirchances for success in learning to read later on.

Because of their regular contact with children during early child-hood, pediatricians and other health care and human service profes-sionals have the opportunity to promote reading. At routine visits,they can help guide parents and encourage children's literacy devel-opment. In the pediatrician's office or well-baby clinic alone there isa wide range of professionals well versed in observing a child'sgrowth, noting needs, and communicating with caretakers for thechild's benefit. In many cases, social service agencies and organiza-tions also have opportunities to assist the child and the family. Of-ten because of a referral from medical or social services, speech and


language therapists or professionals in reading clinics become in-volved with a child's development with respect to reading.

There is a growing shift in medical circles from treatment of acondition after it is identified to prevention and health promotion atvery early ages (Green, 1994). Prevention efforts fall into threecategories: (1) intervention to ameliorate illness and prevent compli-cations when it is known that the child is in difficulty, (2) identifyingprobable problems with early screening devices, and (3) anticipatoryguidance for all families (Osborn, 1996).

For reading problems, the first category affects a small but im-portant number of children who must be referred to specialists be-yond the pediatrician or family practitioner (e.g., medical specialties,speech and language therapists, occupational and physical thera-pists). The acumen of the pediatrician's diagnosis at the earliestpossible time is crucial. For example, the early detection of deafnesscorrelates with higher reading scores among profoundly deaf chil-dren, regardless of the onset of deafness (congenital versus afterbirth) (Padden and Tractenberg, 1996).

For the second category of prevention in pediatric settings, thereare screening devices related to reading that have focused more onthe child's visual functions, although more recent efforts to assessphonological processing deficits as well are being undertaken(Nelson, 1996). There is also a parent screening device that couldallow identification of home factors that are likely to impede literacydevelopment, but it has not been systematically studied for effective-ness (Davis et al., 1991, 1993).

The third category, anticipatory guidance, affects the greatestnumber of children. The pediatrician can give parents guidelines fordealing with different aspects of growth and development (Green,1994). The time spent in regular pediatric visits is limited, however,and complete coverage of the suggested topics would require morethan an hour. Studies of pediatric visits document that less than aminute is given over to anticipatory guidance (Korsch et al., 1971).

A number of pediatric literacy programs are in place in largecities around the country. A good example is Reach Out and Read(ROR), which was first launched in 1989 in Boston City Hospital by

173

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pediatricians and early childhood educators. It has three compo-nents:

waiting room volunteers who model reading aloud and booksharing,giving a picture book to children at each visit from six to 60months of age, andreading guidance and modeling by pediatrician at each visit.

This program has since been replicated and disseminated acrossthe country, varying in the nature of the waiting room activities, theactual people hired to read in the waiting room, and the sort ofadvice given to parents to guide them in reading activities with theirchildren.

In a 1991 evaluation of the program in Boston, 79 parents wereinterviewed about their children's daily routines and favorite activi-ties. Parents who spontaneously mentioned looking at books inresponse to either question were categorized as having a literacyorientation. Results of the evaluation indicated that parents whohad been given a book at the pediatrician's office were more likely toreport a literacy orientation (parents mentioning looking at books,reading books as a favorite activity, going to the library, etc.) Hav-ing been exposed to waiting room readers or to guidance by thepediatrician had no association with literacy orientation.

In a report on the effectiveness of pediatric literacy programs,Needlman (1997) presents the results of evaluations of four addi-tional programs: (1) the Providence Prospective Study (N = 100)(High et al., 1996), (2) the Atlanta Replication (N = 124) and Exten-sion Study (N = 47) (Hazzard et al., 1996), (3) the Oakland CalforniaReplication Study (N = 96) (Bethke, 1997), and (4) the Pediatrician-Enhanced Early Learning Study (N = 300) (Needlman, 1997). Eachof these programs provides similar core experiences for parents andtheir young children. The results of the four additional evaluationswere similar to the findings of the 1991 study presented above.Additional findings were that the program was not consistently ef-fective for parents with higher education, although it was consis-tently effective for parents with less education, and that the program

176


did not increase children's scores on the preschool language scale(Needlman, 1997).

EARLY INTERVENTION FOR CHILDREN WITHPHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENTS

In our discussion in Chapter 4 of risk factors associated withearly reading difficulties, we identified children who are deaf orhearing impaired, who have language impairments, and who havecognitive deficits as needing early intervention that may reduce theirrisk of reading difficulties. Here we review programs to addresstheir early intervention needs as related to reading outcomes whenthe children are in the primary grades.

Children with Hearing Impairments

Most deaf children begin kindergarten and first grade with verylimited English vocabularies and delayed recognition of syntacticstructures in English. Deaf children perform as well as hearingchildren on nonverbal tasks (Furth, 1966; Rittenhouse, 1979) dem-onstrating that they have the cognitive abilities to learn and achievein school. They also have the perceptual skills needed to differenti-ate letters and can learn a finger-spelled alphabet as early as age3 1/2 (Quigley, 1969).

While having cognitive capacities for learning, deaf children facea serious obstacle in learning to read because they lack the speechfoundation on which reading ordinarily rests. Additionally, limita-tions in the experience of deaf children reduce their opportunities toacquire vocabulary and to master the full set of linguistic structuresthat hearing children usually acquire by the age of 6 (Andrews andMason, 1986). In a longitudinal experimental study of 45 deaf chil-dren between 5 and 8 years of age, Andrews and Mason found thatdeaf children's reading abilities are increased through opportunitiesto match their internalized manual language to printed word. Be-cause deaf children are unable to develop strategies to "sound out"new words, they naturally bypass the phonological system and move


through a "holophrastic" system, matching signs and meanings ofwhole words to print.

The authors identify a three-stage model of reading developmentaccording to which deaf children learn: First, the child learns aboutprinted word symbols and can label pictures with manual signs. Atthe second stage, the child can recognize words on signs and foodlabels, can recognize the alphabet using finger spelling, and can readand print a first name. Finally, at the third stage, the child learns toactively break down letters into words and makes significant gains insight word vocabulary, spelling, and printed knowledge. Parentsand preschool teachers can enhance deaf children's communicativeand reading ability growth by beginning very early to communicatewith these children through finger spelling and manual signing.

Although there is evidence suggesting that highly skilled collegedeaf readers show speech coding during reading (Hanson et al.,1991), other evidence suggests that deaf children can encode printdirectly with meaning without using auditory decoding or phono-logical mediation (Ewoldt and Hammermeister, 1986; Stotsky,1987). Literacy instructional practices that focus on building sub-skills, such as phonological awareness, rather than on providingopportunities to derive meaning from text are less effective with deafchildren. In a case study of three profoundly deaf preschool chil-dren, Williams (1994) found that the children's understandingof written language and uses of literacy were appropriate despitetheir delayed receptive language development. A recent study (Li llo-Martin et al., 1997) found that improvements on segmentation ofsounds of English words were made after phonological training butnot after semantic training.

Early identification of hearing-impaired children and early inter-vention to begin teaching them symbolic language can be paramountfor later achievement (Robinshaw, 1994). One model of compre-hensive services for these children is the SKI-HI Institute's ProjectInsite (National Diffusion Network, 1996). This comprehensiveprogram provides screening, audiological, diagnostic, and assess-ment services and complete home intervention programming for chil-dren from birth through age 5 and their families. Audiologicalservices, hearing aid evaluation and loaner system, video units and


tapes for total communication, hearing aid molds, psychologicalservices, and transition to educational environments are included.Children with hearing impairments who enroll in this program expe-rience increases in language growth, including auditory, communi-cation language, and vocabulary levels. A recent evaluation re-vealed that children who took part in the program experienced thegreatest amount of growth and development in the domain of cogni-tion, communication, and language.

Children with Language Impairments

Most children who receive a diagnosis of specific language im-pairment receive treatment during the preschool years. Understand-ably, the primary goal of such interventions is to address the orallanguage difficulties of the child, and their efficacy has been evalu-ated accordingly (Dattilo and Camarata, 1991; Fey, 1990; Friedmanand Friedman, 1980). Because it is now recognized that these chil-dren are also at risk for later reading problems, it is important toidentify what kinds of early interventions, if any, might also beeffective in reducing that risk (Fey et al., 1995a; Kirchner, 1991). Todate, the kinds of help that these preschoolers currently receive doesnot appear to affect longer-term literacy outcomes (Fey et al., 1995b;Yancey, 1988; Huntley et al., 1988), nor does the amount of speech-language therapy a child receives reduce the risk for future readingdifficulties (Aram and Nation, 1980; Bishop and Edmundson, 1987;Stark et al., 1984).

As described earlier, successful readers ordinarily acquire a greatdeal of information about print concepts during the preschool years,and children who begin school knowing less about the nature andpurposes of books and reading are less likely to be high achievers inreading. Studies have shown that preschoolers with specific lan-guage impairment are less knowledgeable about print and aboutstory structure than are other children of the same age (Bishop andAdams, 1990; Weismer, 1985; Gillam and Johnston, 1985). In onestudy, this weakness was not found to be associated with the child'sexposure to and participation in literacy activities; instead, the chil-dren with specific language impairment apparently learned less about

1 "'


print concepts than their age mates with better language skills did(Gil lam and Johnston, 1985). Moreover, interventions that pro-duced differences in the quality of parental book reading have hadinconsistent effects on oral language abilities for children with spe-cific language impairment and have not examined long-term readingachievement outcomes (Dale et al., 1996; Whitehurst et al., 1989).

Second, children with limited phonological awareness at the timeof school entry are at risk for reading failure, and training on thephonological structure of spoken words enhances not only aware-ness but also reading skills. Not surprisingly, given that meta-linguistic skills tend to develop in conjunction with basic languageabilities (Chaney, 1992), children with specific language impairmenttend to be somewhat behind, on average, in attaining the insight thatwords are composed of smaller component sounds (Catts, 1991a,1993). To date, one intervention study has produced impressiveshort- and long-term gains in phonological awareness by childrenwith specific language impairment, compared with untreated samplesof preschoolers with specific language impairment and those withnormal language abilities (Warrick et al., 1993). A similar program,provided for somewhat lower-functioning language-impaired chil-dren, was less successful (O'Connor et al., 1993).

In sum, although some promising results have been obtained inthese early intervention studies, no clear-cut means has yet beenestablished for reducing the high degree of risk associated with spe-cific language impairment.

Children with Cognitive Deficits

Research has shown that special education in early childhoodhas significant effects on young children with cognitive deficits (Cartaet al., 1991; Casto and Mastropieri, 1986; Mallory, 1992). Thesechildren have apparently intact physical sensory systems but stillexhibit significant delays in learning and developing their capacitiesto remember, think, coordinate, and solve problems. It is not clearwhether particular program features have targeted outcomes foryoung children and whether there are significant effects on readingachievement.


There has been considerable controversy about how best to struc-ture early interventions for young children. For instance, researchersdisagree about the extent to which content learning should be pre-sented directly (typically called a didactic or behavioristic approach),as opposed to embedding content in the child's play or self-directedinterests (generally called the developmental or constructivist ap-proach). Some research suggests that better overall achievement re-sults from more developmental approaches (Schweinhart et al.,1986), particularly for infants and toddlers (Mintzer et al., 1992).

One preschool program built on a developmental model that hadpositive follow-up results in reading achievement for children withcognitive deficits is High/Scope model (see Box 5-2). The High/Scope Perry Preschool program is based on the constructivist educa-tional theories of Jean Piaget and John Dewey (Hohmann andWeikart, 1995). It advocates active learning by providing childrenwith opportunities to act according to their personal initiative andengage in direct key experiences with people, materials, events, andideas. High/Scope's aims are to foster the development of intrinsicmotivation and independent thinking and acting, provide a safe en-vironment for social interaction and learning, and build a sense ofcommunity among students and staff through teamwork and coop-erative group activities. The curriculum is guided by five compo-nents, including active learning (as described above), learning envi-ronment, adult-child interaction, daily routine, and assessment.

The preschool space is divided into various "interest areas" (e.g.,water play, drawing and painting, pretend play, "reading" and "writ-ing") with a wide assortment of materials made available to thechildren. A daily routine is followed that includes small-group time,large-group time, outside time, transition times, and the "plan-do-review process"a three-step process aimed at teaching children totake responsibility and make choices, thereby exercising control overtheir lives. Adults regularly engage children in conversation, solicit-ing their responses to experiences, offering encouragement and fo-cusing on their strengths, using a problem-solving approach to con-flicts that arise, and generally building authentic relationships withthem. Finally, teachers meet to plan and share their observations of

1 81


BOX 5-2Essential Features of the High/Scope Program

Structured arranging and equipping of classroomRooms divided into centers (e.g., for dramatic play, art, books,

blocks, music). Each has an ample supply and variety of needed items(specifics are listed in curriculum). Materials are stored in the areaswhere they are used. Space is available for storing and displaying chil-dren's work and belongings. Adults familiarize children with the namesand contents of the areas. Equipment is changed and added throughoutthe year.

Environment accommodates children with disabilities.

Daily routineGeneral characteristics (e.g., consistent transitions), planning time,

work time, clean-up time, recall time, small-group time, outside time, andcircle time.

Planning in a team and teaching methodsMaintain a comfortable, secure environment.Support children's actions and language.Help children make choices and decisions.Help children solve their own problems and do things for them-

selves.Support active learning, enhance language, develop concepts

through experiencing and representing different aspects of classification,seriation, number, spatial relations, and time.

students on a daily basis, using the High/Scope Child ObservationRecord and taking daily anecdotal notes to inform their assessments.

The 58 key experiences or skills included in the High/Scope cur-riculum are distributed among several domains: creative representa-tions, language and literacy, initiative and social relations, move-ment, music, classification, serration, number, space, and time. Forexample, in the category of language and literacy are six key experi-ences that include talking with others about personally meaningfulexperiences, describing objects, events and relations, writing in vari-ous ways (such as drawing, scribbling, and invented spelling) andreading in various ways (such as reading storybooks, signs, symbols,and one's own writing) (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995:345).

1 6


Results from the reading subtest of the California AchievementTest for the High/Scope Perry Preschool study indicate that childrenin the program consistently scored better than those in the controlgroup. Children in the program also had fewer special educationplacements for mild mental retardation and, when placed in specialeducation, spent fewer years there than did those not in the program.The standardized effect sizes (and, as a result, patterns of statisticalsignificance) in the Perry Preschool study suggest the possibility thateffects on reading grew over time. Follow-up studies comparingexperimental group children with randomly assigned peers indicatedthe persistence of social and educational benefits extending intoadulthood (Schweinhart et al., 1985).

Other studies compared cognitively oriented programs and aca-demically oriented programs as a means of intervention for pre-school children with cognitive deficits. The effect of program fea-tures was examined in a randomized design with children who hadmild to moderate disabilities (Dale and Cole, 1988). Direct instruc-tion (Becker et al., 1975; Becker, 1977) is a program with academicskills as content. Distar language is the preschool version and in-cludes an extensive analysis of language skills involved and a par-ticular teaching method. Instruction is systematic, teacher directed,and fast paced, with procedures for error correction and reinforce-ment. Mediated instruction (Haywood et al., 1992) is a programwith cognitive processes as content. It teaches generalizable cogni-tive strategies, with an emphasis on enhancing motivation to want tolearn through systems of task-intrinsic reinforcement. Children aretaught to identify problems, monitor their responses, and avoid im-pulsive, rapid responding.

The preschool interventions (children ages 3 to 5) produced dif-ferential results that were consistent with the models of the twodifferent programs. The direct instruction group had significantlyhigher performance on two tests of language development. Themediated instruction group had significantly higher verbal andmemory scores and scores on mean length of utterance derived fromlanguage samples.

In follow-up studies, significant differential effects were foundon two measures of cognitive ability, favoring the mediated instruc-


tion group, but none of the measures of academic ability, includingreading ability, showed a significant differential effect. By the sec-ond year of follow-up, there were no significant differential effects ofthe two programs, although the overall benefits of the early interven-tion appeared to continue, including reading achievement (Cole etal., 1989).

The important finding of this study was that, at the end of thefirst year in the preschool programs and at follow-up when childrenwere 9 years old, there was an interaction between the treatment andaptitude. Children who showed higher general cognitive ability be-fore the preschool intervention gained more from direct instruction;children who had lower general cognitive ability before the interven-tion gained more from mediated instruction (Cole et al., 1993). Thiseffect was significant at age 9 in tests of reading comprehension(Mills et al., 1995).

In sum, some promising findings indicate the nature of earlyintervention for children with cognitive deficits that reduce theirhigh degree of risk for reading difficulties. Even with these interven-tions, children with cognitive deficiencies remain at risk for readingdifficulties and need ongoing intensive interventions.

SUMMARY

Children who arrive at school ready to learn have typically hadthe opportunity to acquire a good deal of knowledge about languageand literacy during their preschool years. Well before formal read-ing instruction is appropriate, many informal opportunities for learn-ing about literacy are available, to varying degrees, in most Ameri-can homes and child care settings. Ideally, these opportunities meanthat children have acquired some level of awareness of print and ofthe utility of literacy, that they may have some specific knowledge ofletters or frequently encountered words, that they have developedsome capacity to play with and analyze the sound system of theirnative language, and that they are motivated to use literacy. Lan-guage development during the preschool years, in particular the de-velopment of a rich vocabulary and of some familiarity with thelanguage forms used for communication and books, constitutes an-


other equally important domain of preparation for formal readinginstruction.

Primary prevention of reading difficulties during the preschoolyears involves ensuring that families and group care settings foryoung children offer the experiences and support that make theselanguage and literacy accomplishments possible. Parents and othercaregivers should spend time in one-on-one conversation with youngchildren, read books with them, provide writing materials, supportdramatic play that might incorporate literacy activities, demonstratethe uses of literacy, and maintain a joyful, playful atmosphere aroundliteracy activities. For most children, these primary prevention ef-forts will ensure that they are ready for formal reading instruction.

Some children require more intensive secondary prevention ef-forts, including children in high-risk groups as well as those whohave been identified as having language or cognitive delays or othersorts of impairments that may make literacy learning difficult. Dur-ing this developmental period, secondary prevention does not lookvery different from primary prevention, differing primarily in inten-sity, quantity, and maintenance of the highest possible quality ofinteractions around language and literacy. Family-focused effortsare often designed to remove impediments to the availability of suchsupport at home, through parent education, job training, and theprovision of social services. Excellent preschools can also make adifference for at-risk children; excellent in this case implies providingrich opportunities to learn and to practice language and literacy-related skills in a playful and motivating setting. Substantial re-search confirms the value of such preschools in preventing or reduc-ing reading difficulties for at-risk children.

Hsu

6Instructional Strategies for

Kindergarten and thePrimary Grades

The mission of public schooling is to offer every child full andequal educational opportunity regardless of the background, educa-tion, and income of the child's parents. A most fundamental andimportant issue facing schools is how to teach reading and writing,particularly in the early grades. Children who struggle in vain withreading in the first grade soon decide that they neither like nor wantto read (Juel, 1988). Even if they do not fall into any of the recog-nized at-risk categories, these children soon are at risk of poor lit-eracy outcomes.

The major prevention strategy for them is excellent instruction.The intervention considered in this chapter is therefore schoolingitself; we outline the major literacy goals for kindergarten and thefirst three primary grades, examining evidence concerning effectivemethods to attain those goals.

INTRODUCTION

Previous Reviews

The issue of what constitutes optimal reading instruction hasgenerated discussion and debate and the investment of research ef-

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INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES 173

fort over many decades. This report builds on earlier work, yet ourscope limits us only to briefly summarizing earlier efforts. We ac-knowledge the degree to which our report benefits from this workand draw the reader's attention to the long history of thinking aboutthese topics.

First-Grade Studies

Between 1964 and 1967, the U.S. Office of Education conductedthe Cooperative Research Program in First Grade Reading Instruc-tion; this was an early and ambitious effort at large-scale evaluationof instructional approaches. The program, coordinated by Guy L.Bond and Robert Dykstra, included classroom approaches that em-phasized systematic phonics instruction, meaningful connected read-ing, and writing; its results surpassed those of mainstream basalprograms. Conceived and conducted prior to much of the psycho-linguistic research on the subprocesses and factors involved in read-ing acquisition, these studies were not submitted to the levels ofanalysis characteristic of later efforts. Nonetheless, they pointed to aconsistent advantage for code-emphasis approaches while indicatingthat one single simple method was not superior for all children andall teachers.

The Great Debate

Among efforts to identify factors associated with more and lesseffective beginning reading practices, Jeanne S. Chall's (1967) work,Learning to Read: The Great Debate, remains a classic. Whileproducing this work, Chall visited classrooms, interviewed experts,and analyzed programs. Yet it was her review and analysis of thethen-available research on instructional practices that yielded themost stunning conclusions. Chall found substantial and consistentadvantages for programs that included systematic phonics, as mea-sured by outcomes on word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, andreading comprehension at least through the third grade. Moreover,the advantage of systematic phonics was just as great and perhapsgreater for children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or with

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low-level abilities entering first grade as it was for better prepared ormore privileged children. Chall also noted the need to provide chil-dren with the practice in reading that would generate reading flu-ency and the value of providing challenging reading material in addi-tion to texts that enabled children to practice skills they had acquired.

Chall's conclusions regarding beginning instruction were chal-lenged by people who raised questions about the validity of theresearch studies available for her review and the difficulty of apply-ing a classification system that attempted to divide programs intocode- and meaning-emphasis categories (e.g., Rutherford, 1968).Although Chall did not suggest that her findings be used to endorsesystematic phonics approaches, her work has been highly influentialin support of those who endorse a heavy emphasis on phonics inbeginning reading.

Beginning to Read

In 1990, Marilyn J. Adams published Beginning to Read: Think-ing and Learning About Print. Like Chall, Adams synthesized avail-able research but also included a review of the literature on thepsycholinguistic processes involved in reading. She concluded thatdirect instruction in phonics, focusing on the orthographic regulari-ties of English, was characteristic of good, effective reading instruc-tion, but she noted the need for practice in reading, for exposure toa lot of reading materials as input to vocabulary learning, and formotivating, interesting reading materials. Evidence from classroomresearch on the advantages of incorporating a code-oriented ap-proach to early reading instruction was interpreted by Adams inlight of evidence from basic research on the cognitive processes in-volved in reading and evidence concerning the nature of the codeitself. Adam's research synthesis was highly convergent with that ofChall, both in confirming the importance of teaching children ex-plicitly about the code of English orthography and in noting thatgood readers must have access to many experiences with literacy thatgo beyond the specifics of phonics instruction.

Adams's synthesis was especially useful in drawing together re-search from across several different subdisciplines of psychology,

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child development, linguistics, and education. Most importantly,perhaps, her review pointed to the critical importance not just ofchildren's learning but also of their basic early understandings ofprint and how print works, and, in particular, of the scattered butalready converging evidence for the key role of basic phonemicawareness in fostering alphabetic understanding.

Follow Through

Provoked by finding that gains made by Head Start studentsduring preschool tended to dissipate with time, in the early 1970sthe federal government sponsored another large study comparing thelong-term effects of reading instructional methods. The objective ofProject Follow Through was to determine which general educationalapproaches or models worked best in fostering and maintaining theeducational progress of disadvantaged children across the primaryschool years. By design, the 20 models included in the project con-trasted broadly in philosophy and approach and included basic skillsmodels, emphasizing basic academic skills; cognitive-conceptualmodels, emphasizing process over content learning; and affectivemodels, emphasizing self-esteem, curiosity, and persistence.

Analyses of the data revealed major findings (Stebbins et al.,1977): (1) The effectiveness of each Follow Through model variedsubstantially from site to site. No model was powerful enough toraise test scores everywhere it was implemented. (2) Models thatemphasized basic skills (language, math computation, vocabulary,spelling) succeeded better than others in helping children gain theseskills. (3) Models that emphasized basic skills produced betterresults on tests of self-esteem than did other models, including thosespecifically aimed at self-esteem. (4) No model was notably moresuccessful than the others in raising scores on cognitive conceptualskills. (5) When models emphasized cognitive areas other than basicskills, children tended to score lower on tests of basic skills than theywould have without the program.

The researchers concluded that "most Follow Through interven-tions produced more negative than positive effects on basic skills testscores" (Stebbins et al., 1977). The only notable exception to this


trend was the Direct Instruction Model, which promoted the teach-ing of skills and concepts essential to reading, arithmetic, and lan-guage achievement. It emphasized the systematic teaching of phone-mic and language skills and promoted academic engagement.Students who participated during four full years (kindergartenthrough third grade) in the direct instruction program performedclose to or at national norms on measures of reading, math, lan-guage, and spelling.

The national Follow Through evaluation study has been criti-cized for many problems of the type often associated with fieldresearch in education and social services, including nonrandom as-signment of subjects, unclear definition of treatment, problems ofassessing implementation, less than ideal instrumentation, mislead-ing classification of models and outcome measures, inadequate re-search design, questionable statistical analyses, and the use of meth-odological and statistical strategies that favored some type of modelover others (Stebbins et al., 1977; House et al., 1978). Perhapsbecause of some of these factors, intersite variation among modelswas larger than between-model differences (House et al., 1978).

In subsequent analyses, however, much of this variation disap-peared when demographic factors were properly considered in thedesignation of control sites and outcome aggregation (Gersten,1984), adding confidence to Project Follow Through's positive dataon the value of the Direct Instruction Model. Moreover, follow-upstudies of students suggested lasting effects of direct instruction.(Recall our discussion of direct instruction and cognitively orientedpreschool education models, which have some similar results as thosefindings on direct instruction in kindergarten through grade 3 andalso some contrasting findings.)

Although the Follow Through results suggest very positive ef-fects for the program, it has not been as widely embraced as might beexpected. It may be that teachers believe that direct instruction ingeneral is only for teaching factual content to students of low abilityand not for promoting problem solving or higher-level thinking (seereview by Peterson et al., 1982), although confirmatory evidence isnot available.

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Other Efforts

The classroom observational research of Stallings et al. (1986)and Soar (1973) described and linked critical features of the FollowThrough approach to student outcomes. The work of these re-searchers played a large role in the various syntheses of research oneffective teaching written in the late 1970s and the 1980s, such asthose by Brophy and Good (1984) and Rosenshine and Stevens(1986). Classroom observation by Stallings and Soar uncovered thestrong correlation between children's academic engaged time andgrowth in achievement and certain patterns of teacher-student inter-action. In addition, it indicated the importance of explicit instruc-tion for enhancing the achievement of disadvantaged students, aconclusion reinforced by subsequent observational research (e.g.,Brophy and Evertson, 1978; Good and Grouws, 1975).

Given previous efforts to assess instructional practice, the com-mittee sought to examine current research on reading instruction.The next section describes the criteria used in selecting such studies.

Selection Criteria

Building on the previous work on instruction, the committeeexamined instructional practices that were supported by convergentevidence. We sought evidence about individual differences in re-sponse to treatment. Furthermore, we were interested in studies thatassessed both short- and long-term reading outcomes, although long-term outcomes were available for only a few programs. Evaluationsof instructional programs in kindergarten classrooms are not numer-ous, yet inferences about what such programs must cover are tightlyconstrained by the preschool predictors of literacy success on oneside and the first-grade requirements on the other. Moreover, themajor instructional tension associated with kindergarten literacyobjectives is less about what children should learn than how they canbe helped to learn it in an appropriate manner.

Similarly, we know from intense research efforts what first-gradechildren ought to accomplish in reading, yet intense debate contin-


ues on what and how they should be taught. Questions of how toorganize and support learning in a way that results in the best pos-sible outcomes for the largest number of children are an urgenteducational priority. In view of this and because the research basepermits, the section on first grade is principally directed to evalua-tions and comparisons of instructional programs. Beyond first grade,the relevant issues and goals multiply as the relevant research baserecedes. In the dual interest of reviewing what is known and point-ing toward key unknowns, our discussion of second- and third-gradeissues is taken up goal by goal.

Converging evidence from experimental investigations, correla-tional studies, nonequivalent control-group studies, and variousother quasi-experimental designs and multivariate correlational de-signs presented in this and other chapters led the committee to focuson particular practices and programs. Many of the classroom inves-tigations presented in this chapter have high external validitythatis, their results are generalizable to the children and settings that weare studyingand are less robust in internal validity (i.e., experi-mental control of variables) because of the logistical difficulties in-volved in carrying out such investigations. Hence, there is a need tolook for a convergence of resultsnot just consistency from onemethod. When convergence is obtained, confidence increases thatour conclusions have both internal and external validity.

Among the most important ways to prevent reading difficulties isclassroom instruction in literacy activities, which begins in kinder-garten.

KINDERGARTEN

The Kindergarten Challenge

A kindergarten classroom typically consists of an adult and 20 to25 studentsa very different scenario from a home or preschool.The management demands of the typical kindergarten classroomnecessitate a level of conformity and control of comportment thatchallenges many entering children, regardless of how accommodat-ing the classroom may be to children's individual natures and needs.

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A child can no longer demand the attention or assistance of theattendant adult at will; each must learn how to solicit individualattention and to wait patiently while the teacher is attending toothers. To a greater or lesser extent depending on the classroom,every kindergartner must learn to sit quietly, to listen consideratelyto both the teacher and other students, to communicate coopera-tively, to restrain behavior to within acceptable limits, to accomplishtasks both independently and with others, to share resources, totreat others respectfully, and to try to learn and do what she or he isasked to learn and do. Meanwhile, preparing children to learn toread is the top priority on the kindergarten teacher's agenda.

Fostering Literacy in the Kindergarten Classroom

The delicate balance for the kindergarten teacher is thus one ofrealizing means of promoting literacy learning in ways that are atonce developmentally sensitive and appropriately foresighted, in or-der to ensure that as children leave kindergarten they have the ca-pacities needed to function well in the typical first grade. Morespecifically, two goals are paramount. The first is to ensure thatchildren leave kindergarten familiar with the structural elements andorganization of print. By the end of kindergarten, children should befamiliar with the forms and format of books and other print re-sources and be able to recognize and write most of the alphabet; theyshould also have some basic phonemic awareness, that is, under-standing of the segmentability of spoken words into smaller units.The second major goal of kindergarten is to establish perspectivesand attitudes on which learning about and from print depend; itincludes motivating children to be literate and making them feel likesuccessful learners. In this section, we provide examples of materialsand activities that have been used well toward these ends.

Reading aloud with kindergartners has been broadly advocated.By actively engaging children with different aspects of shared books,read-aloud sessions offer an ideal forum for exploring many dimen-sions of language and literacy. This is especially important for chil-dren who have had little storybook experience outside school(Feitelson et al., 1993; Purcell-Gates et al., 1995). Among the goals

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of interactive storybook reading are developing children's conceptsabout print, including terms such as "word" and "letter" (Holdaway,1979; Snow and Tabors, 1993); building familiarity with the vo-cabulary of book language (Robbins and Ehri, 1994), as well as itssyntax and style (Bus et al., 1995; Feitelson, et al., 1993); and devel-oping children's appreciation of text and their motivation to learn toread themselves.

Effective practices for fostering these goals include encouragingchildren to ask their own questions about the story; to respond toothers' questions; to follow the text with movement, mime, or choralreading; and to notice the forms and functions of print features(words, punctuation, letters, etc.). In addition, children's learningfrom and about storybooks is enhanced by repeated readings(Martinez et al., 1989). Recall from Chapter 4 that many of theoutcomes of reading aloud as measured in kindergarten are signifi-cantly associated with reading achievement outcomes in first throughthird grades.

In recent years, parents and teachers have been increasingly en-couraged to share nonfiction as well as fiction with youngsters. Toexplore the educational impact of these recommendations, Mason etal. (1989) asked several kindergarten teachers to read three differenttypes of selections: storybooks, informational texts, and easy-to-read picture books. They found that, depending on the type of textwith which they were working, these teachers spontaneously butconsistently and dramatically shifted the focus and nature of theaccompanying discussion and surrounding activities. Not only theinstructional emphases but also the complexity and nature of thelanguage produced by both the teacher and the students appeared tochange distinctively across these types of reading situations.

Before reading the storybook aloud, the teachers initiated discus-sions about its author, central characters, and concepts; during storyreading, they clarified vocabulary and engaged the students in mak-ing predictions and explaining motives and events; afterward theyasked them to reflect on the meaning and message of the story.

Given the science text, in contrast, teachers engaged the childrenin activities designed to help them relate the text to their everydayexperiences. Socratically probing their responses, teachers led stu-

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dents to predict and explain, to deduce and test causes, and to dis-cern necessary from sufficient conditions. In addition, vocabularytended to be handled through rather elaborate concept developmentinstead of definition.

Finally, given easy-to-read picture books, discussion was morelimited but firmly focused on the print and the words on each page.In short, the potential value of reading different genres with childrenextends well beyond any properties of the texts themselves. More-over, the kinds of activities and discussion associated with eachgenre make distinctive contributions toward developing children'sappreciation of the nature, purposes, and processes of reading.

The sheer availability of books has been suggested as an impor-tant catalyst for children's literacy development (Gambrell, 1995;Gambrell and Morrow 1996; Krashen, 1996). But the impact ofbooks on children's literacy development depends strongly on howtheir teachers make use of them. Demonstration of the effects ofbooks, augmented with materials, training, and home involvementto stimulate oral interaction around books, with Spanish-speakingkindergartners can be found in Goldenberg (1994).

A good kindergarten program should also prepare children toread by themselves. Few kindergartners are developmentally readyfor real reading on their own. However, a variety of print materialshave been especially designed to support early ventures into print.By way of example, we describe three: big books, predictable books,and rebus books.

Big books are nothing more than oversized storybooks. As such,they offer opportunity for sharing the print and illustrations with awhole group of children in the ways that one might share a standard-sized book with just a few (Holdaway, 1979). A common classroomactivity with big books, for example, is fingerpoint reading: as theteacher points to the words of a familiar text or refrain in sequence,the children are challenged to recite the words in time. Beyondleading children to internalize the language of a story, fingerpointreading is useful for developing basic concepts about print, such asdirectionality. Slightly more advanced children can be led to dis-cover the visual differences between one word and two words orbetween long words and short words. Repeated words may be

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hunted down with the goal of establishing them as sight words, andrhyming texts may be well suited to introducing a basic notion ofletter-sound correspondences.

Patterned or predictable books, as their name suggests, are com-posed of text that is at least semirepetitive or predictable. The classicin this category is the story by Bill Martin, Jr., Brown Bear, BrownBear, What Do You See? (1992). The first page of the story vividlydepicts a red bird along with a printed answer for the bear, "I see ared bird looking at me." The second page restates the initial ques-tion as "Red bird, red bird, what do you see?" and answers withreference to a third animal. Each successive page varies only thename of the creature that is pictured and named. By perusing pat-terned and predictable books, children learn how to use predictionsand picture cues to augment or reinforce the text, even as they de-velop basic book-handling habits.

In rebus books, words or syllables of words that are beyond thechildren's reading ability are represented in the text itself by littlepictures, or rebuses, of their referents. An example of a sentence ina rebus book is presented in Box 6-1. Entry-level rebus books areoften designed to build a basic sight repertoire of such short and veryfrequent function words as "the," "of," "is," and "are." As thechild's skill in word recognition progresses, the number of differentprinted words is increased. Several studies have demonstrated thatthe use of rebus books at entry levels can measurably ease children'smovement into real reading (Biemiller and Siegel, in press;MacKinnon, 1959).

Variations of the language experience approach offer yet anotherway to ease children into reading. The objective of this approach isto impart the understanding that anything that can be said can be


written and vice versa (Allen, 1976). The basic method of the lan-guage experience approach thus consists of writing down what chil-dren say and then leading them to appreciate that what has beenwritten is what they have said.

The range of opportunities for capturing talk in writing is enor-mousfrom labels or captions on artwork for young children, toillustrated storybooks produced by older ones. The method can beused for cognitively preparing a class activity or, afterward, for sum-marizing it. The approach provides a natural medium for clarifyingsuch print basics as the idea that individual words are separated byspaces in print and that the end of a line is not always the end of athought. The children may be led to notice that every time a particu-lar word is written, it is comprised of the same ordered set of letters.From there, the child might be led to notice that "each letter of thealphabet stands for one or more sounds that I make when I talk"(Allen, 1976:54). Research affirms that use of language experienceactivities in the kindergarten classroom is of general benefit in en-hancing reading readiness (Stahl and Miller, 1989).

Play-based instruction, in which children are encouraged to re-flect on situations through dramatizations of their own invention, isalso appropriate in kindergarten (Galda, 1984; Smilansky, 1968).Settings that provide choice, control, and appropriate levels of chal-lenge appear to facilitate the development of self-regulated, inten-tional learning (Turner and Paris, 1995). Meanwhile, a major goalof sociodramatic play is to increase oral language use. Childreninteract and use new language as they plan, negotiate, compose, andcarry out the "script" of their play (Crenshaw, 1985; Levy et al.,1992). In addition, children practice verbal and narrative skills thatare important to the development of reading comprehension (Gentileand Hoot, 1983).

Researchers have observed that 20- to 30-minute play sessionsare necessary for children to create the elaborate scripts that lead tothe intentional use of literacy in dramatic play (Christie et al., 1988).Similarly, children write more often when they have ready access toappropriate materials, such as paper, markers, pencils, and stamppads (Morrow and Rand, 1991; Neuman and Roskos, 1992;Schrader, 1985; Vukelich, 1990). Even so, the teacher's participa-

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tion and guidance are pivotal in helping children to incorporateliteracy materials into their play (Him ley, 1986; Isenberg and Jacob,1983; Morrow and Rand, 1991). For example, one study comparedchildren who played in a print-rich center with or without literacy-related guidance from their teacher (Vukelich, 1994). When latertested on their recognition of print that had been displayed in theplay environment, those who had received teacher guidance werebetter able to recognize the words, even when presented in a listwithout the graphics and context of the play surround.

Kindergarten teachers can facilitate language and literacy devel-opment through play-based literacy instruction if they:

allow enough time and space for play in the classroom,provide the needed material resources,develop children's background knowledge for the play setting,scaffold the rehearsals of dramatic retellings, andbecome involved in play settings so as to guide the children'sattention and learning through modeling and interaction.

Helping Children to Discover the Alphabetic Principle

As discussed in earlier chapters, English is an alphabetic lan-guage in which printed letters systematically, but not entirely consis-tently, represent phonemes (the smallest meaningful phonologicalelements within spoken words.) In order to grasp this fundamentalprinciple of alphabetic literacy, it is therefore imperative that chil-dren first acquire some degree of (a) letter knowledge, including theability to distinguish and identify the letters of the alphabet, and (b)phonological awareness, an appreciation of the fact that spokenwords are made up of smaller units of sound. The training studies ofByrne and Fielding-Barnesley (1989) illustrate dramatically that bothletter knowledge and phonological awareness are needed in combi-nation for young children to acquire the alphabetic principle. Sev-eral lines of research offer some guidance on how these skills cansuccessfully be promoted through kindergarten activities.

Questions of how much alphabetic instruction kindergartnersneed have been contentious. It seems clear that there is no need to

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wait until a child knows all the letters of the alphabet to start explicitinstruction in decodingknowledge of the sound value of a fewconsonants and vowels may be enough on which to build phonemicawareness and initial word reading instruction (Fielding-Barnesley,1997). Yet, until a child can reliably recognize some letters, learningthe alphabetic principle and using it to read novel words is pre-cluded.

As reviewed in Chapter 4, children enter school with widelyvarying degrees of letter knowledge, and how well kindergartnerscan identify letters is a strong predictor of future achievement inreading. Almost all kindergartners can comfortably learn to recog-nize and print most of the letters by the end of the year, if they aretaught in ways that respond to their developmental needs. Someevidence suggests that an environmental literacy or whole-languageorientation in kindergarten is more effective than phonics-orientedinstruction, particularly for children with low initial scores on knowl-edge of literacy conventions, including letter knowledge (Sacks andMergendoller, 1997), presumably because these children are not yetdevelopmentally prepared to benefit from explicit instruction in let-ter-sound relationships.

Turning to phonological awareness, there is an extensive re-search base in support of the effectiveness and practical utility ofproviding kindergartners with instruction in this skill. As noted inearlier chapters, children begin school with different degrees of in-sight into the phonological structure of words, with some of themstill unaware that words contain smaller speech elements, and otherchildren having already become aware of the existence of syllables,onsets and rimes, and even phonological segments. Research indi-cates that the latter are very likely to turn out to be successful readers(see Chapter 4) but that the prognosis for entering kindergartnerswith little or no phonological awareness is less clear. Many can anddo begin to attain this sensitivity during the kindergarten year andrespond successfully once formal reading initiation begins.

Several studies have documented, furthermore, that young chil-dren who receive specific training in phonological awareness areable to learn to read more quickly than children of similar back-grounds who do not receive such training. Lundberg et al. (1988)

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provided training in phonological awareness to Danish children be-fore they began formal reading instruction and then measured theirachievement at the end of first and second grade. In comparison tochildren who did not receive the training, the trained group showedstronger word reading skills at the end of second grade (althoughthis difference was not as apparent earlier). Moreover, the benefitswere significantly stronger for children whose initial phonologicalskills were lowest (Lundberg, 1994).

Similar evidence for the effectiveness of training in phonologicalsensitivity in facilitating early reading acquisition have been obtainedin large-scale studies of German (Schneider et al., 1997) and Norwe-gian (Lie, 1991) beginning readers. Likewise, in Cunningham's(1990) kindergarten sample, post-test reading scores were higher forchildren who received phonological training than for a comparisongroup that instead listened to stories and discussed them. In a longi-tudinal study of Australian youngsters, furthermore, the benefits ofphonological awareness training at ages 4 to 5 years have been shownto be maintained through third grade (Byrne and Fielding-Barnsley,1991, 1995).

These findings are theoretically important in showing the effectsof training in phonological awareness alone, unaccompanied by in-struction in letters or spelling-sound relationships. They tell us thatthe positive effects in other studies, which have introduced trainingin phonological awareness in conjunction with lessons about lettersand reading, probably did not succeed solely because they includedprint instruction but rather because the (oral) training in phonologi-cal skills also made a contribution to the trained children's superiorachievement (e.g., Ball and Blachman, 1991; Cunningham, 1990;Fox and Routh, 1976, 1984; McGuinness et al., 1995; Uhry andShepherd, 1993). In a similar vein, Scanlon and Vellutino (in press)found that, of all the various foci of language arts instruction ob-served in the kindergarten classroom, only the proportion of timethat was devoted to analyzing the internal structure of spoken andwritten words reliably predicted differences in reading achievementat the end of first grade. Although the relative contributions of thevarious components of training cannot be readily estimated, the con-

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sistent gains in reading achievement obtained in these studies are ofconsiderable practical significance.

In both classroom-based and experimental interventions to trainphonological awareness, the nature of the training has been craftedto be age appropriate and engaging. A variety of games and activi-ties have been designed to direct children's attention to the sounds,rather than just the meanings, of spoken words. These activities caninvolve, for instance, detecting and producing rhymes and allitera-tive sequences in songs and speech, identifying objects in the envi-ronment whose names begin (or end) with the same sound, clappingto indicate the number of syllables (or phonemes) in a spoken word,and so forth. An English translation of the original Lundberg pro-gram has recently been published in the United States (Adams et al.,1998), and other research-tested materials and commercial products(including software) for use in phonological awareness training priorto formal reading instruction are now widely available for kinder-garten teachers who wish to strengthen the phonological skills oftheir students.

Another kindergarten activity that promdtes both letter knowl-edge and phonological awareness is writing. In many kindergartenclassrooms, children are encouraged to compose and write indepen-dently. Interestingly, in the aforementioned Scanlon and Vellutino(in press) study, writing was the context in which word analysismost often took place, typically as using phonological analysis in theservice of "figuring out" the spellings of words. At the earlieststages, writing may consist of scribbling or strings of letter-like forms.If opportunities to write are ample and well complemented by otherliteracy activities and alphabetic instruction, kindergartners shouldbe using real letters to spell words phonetically before the schoolyear is out.

The practice of encouraging children to spell words as they sound(sometimes called invented or temporary spelling) has been shown tohasten refinement of children's phonemic awareness (Adams,Treiman, and Pressley, in press; Treiman, 1993) and to acceleratetheir acquisition of conventional spelling when it is taught in firstgrade and up (Clarke, 1988). Such spellings can be carried out usingletter blocks or letter cards, to ease the motor challenge of printing.

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Children's independent spellings yield direct evidence of their levelof phonological sensitivity and orthographic knowledge, enablingthe knowledgeable teacher to tailor instruction and respond to indi-vidual difficulties.

Enhancing children's letter knowledge and phonological aware-ness skills should be a priority goal in the kindergarten classroom.Not only will these abilities be key to the children's success in learn-ing to read in the first grade, but they are also critical to the effective-ness of the prereading activities so important in kindergarten. Forexample, fingerpoint reading with big books is meant to helpchildren learn to recognize individual words and induce generalknowledge about the alphabetic system through repeated, active,and meaning-laden associations of the spoken and printed wordingof texts (Holdaway, 1979). Instructional intentions notwithstand-ing, however, research indicates that children's ability to fingerpointin phase with recitation depends on their ability to sound the initialconsonants of words; it depends, in other words, on prior letterknowledge and phonemic awareness (Ehri and Chun, 1996; Ehri andSweet, 1991; Morris, 1983, 1992, 1993). Similarly, a major goal ofposting meaningful labels and print in play centers and around theclassroom is to induce students, by virtue of repeated attention, tolearn the letters and words displayed; again, however, children whodo not already know some letters tend neither to attend to nor tolearn from environmental print (Masonheimer et al., 1984).

Hanson et al. (1987) found positive effects of a kindergartenreading program in which children were given code-oriented instruc-tion and used decodable texts developed by SWRL, the BeginningReading Program. Small positive effects were found when the chil-dren were in their senior year of high school (Hanson and Farrell,1995). A similar type of program for Spanish-speaking childrenlearning to read in Spanish (Goldenberg, 1994) is presented in Chap-ter 7.

Activities and materials for supporting appropriate instruction inthe kindergarten classroom abound. Examples beyond those alreadymentioned include books on tape; puppet theater; computer-basedreading, writing, and storybook activities; board games; activitysheets; children's magazines; and all manner of individual and group

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projects. In large measure, of course, the differences among theseactivities and materials are in the strategies chosen to engage thechildren's interest and attention. Reanalyzing the various techniquesjust reviewed to extract the underlying instructional activities, wecan see that they are relatively few in number:

oral language activities for fostering growth in receptive andexpressive language and verbal reasoning,

reading aloud with children to foster their appreciation andcomprehension of text and literary language,

reading and book exploration by children for developing printconcepts and basic reading knowledge and processes,

writing activities for developing children's personal apprecia-tion of the communicative dimensions of print and for exercisingprinting and spelling abilities,

thematic activities (e.g., sociodramatic play) for giving chil-dren opportunity to integrate and extend their understanding ofstories and new knowledge spaces,

print-directed activities for establishing children's ability torecognize and print the letters of the alphabet,

phonemic analysis activities for developing children's phono-logical and phonemic awareness, and

word-directed activities for helping children to acquire a ba-sic sight vocabulary and to understand and appreciate the alphabeticprinciple.

Basal Reading Programs in Kindergarten

Basal reading packages provide another view of instructionalpriorities for each grade. These commercial packages constitute thecore reading program in many classrooms. They generally includeinstructional manuals for teachers, with detailed lesson plans andactivities for the whole school year, and accompanying reading andlesson materials for students. In addition, the packages typicallyinclude any of a variety of ancillary resources and materials, such asbig books; games, workbooks, and manipulables for students; as-

20.7,


sessment forms; puppets; pocket charts; wall charts and posters;audiotapes of songs for classroom use; books on tape; etc. To ac-commodate state adoption and purchasing schedules, basal programsare revised and reissued every two to five years, and publishers'decisions about which objectives to emphasize in each new editionare strongly guided by market research. Because of this, an inven-tory of basal objectives is a slightly time-lagged profile of modalinstructional preferences and practices.

The results of a recent analysis of basal reading programs at thekindergarten level is presented in Table 6-1. The reading curriculumprograms analyzed were:

The Addison-Wesley Reading Program, Addison-Wesley;Connections, Macmillan;HBJ Reading Program, Imagination: An Odyssey ThroughLanguage, Impressions, Reading Today and Tomorrow,Harcourt Bruce Jovanvich;Heath Reading,D.C. Heath;The Literature Experience, Houghton Mifflin;Merrill Linguistic Reading Program, SRA School Group;Open Court Reading and Writing, Open Court;Reading Mastery, Science Research Associates;Scott Foresman Reading, Scott Foresman; andWorld of Reading, Silver Burdett and Ginn.

As reported in Table 6-1, six categories of instructional activitieswere a part of the majority of these programs: reading aloud, orallanguage, phonemic awareness, letter recognition and phonics, writ-ing, and print awareness. Stein's analysis notes what programs haveas a part of their package rather than what teachers actually do withthe materials.

The analysis included the major reading curriculum programs onthe market in 1993. In the years since Stein's analysis was com-pleted, however, most of the programs have been revised; some havebeen entirely reconstituted; several have been acquired by other pub-lishers; two have been abandoned; and one new package (by Scho-

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TABLE 6-1 Kindergarten Basal Reading Programs

Content Area Definition

Suggestions forreading aloud tostudents

Oral languageactivities

Phonemic awarenessactivities

Letter recognition orsound/symbolrelationships

Writing activities

Print awarenessactivities

Any recommendation that the teacherread aloud to the students.

Any activities designed to teachlanguage concepts, vocabulary,and background knowledge, aswell as those activities designedto promote listening comprehension.

Games or activities that focus onwords and their phonemic elements,oral segmenting and blending activities,oral syllabication, and rhyming activities.(It should be noted that to discriminatephonemic awareness from decodingstrategy instruction, only oral activitiesare included in this category.)

Percentage

77

92

92

Activities that isolate lettersand/or sounds. 92

Tracing, copying, printing, and/orcomposing activities. 100

Activities that provide exposureto print in various forms or asrepresented by different media(e.g., signs, labels, letters in clayor fabric). 77

SOURCE: Based on Stein et al. (1993).

lastic) has joined the ranks of major offerings. The point of includ-ing the table, however, is that many of the activities mentionedthroughout this kindergarten section are represented in the basalprograms. Most but not all of the basal programs accord consider-

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able emphasis to reading aloud, oral language development, andletter-sound fundamentals.

Since recommended activities and emphases are fixed, the in-structional progression and materials of any given basal are likelynot to match the needs and interests of at least some and possibly allstudents in a class. Currently, the most popular strategy for accom-modating the potential range of student needs and interests is toinclude in each lesson an ample menu of optional activities. Anotherwidely used tactic is to stretch the effective range of suggested activi-ties by giving students themselves license to choose among activitiesor to exercise options in the activities' execution. Also, althoughdiffering in manner, many programs lay out plans that afford class-room time and means for allowing individuals or small groups towork at their respective instructional levels. Except in the hands ofthe most competent teachers, each of these strategies carries its ownvariety of risks to classroom order and instructional coverage. Thus,another approach, although increasingly rare, is to ensure theprogram's conduct and coverage by adopting the safe assumptionthat no students know anything that has not been taught and detail-ing everything to be taught in sequence.

Simmons et al. (1994) recently examined the four best-sellingcommercial basal reading programs to answer two questions: (1)To what extent have educational publishers incorporated instruc-tional design and pedagogical features supported by current researchon beginning reading, in general, and phonological awareness, inparticular, in the design of beginning basal reading programs? (2)To what extent are the instructional design and pedagogical featuresof the beginning basal reading programs likely to accommodate theneeds of diverse learners? They have a number of general findings:

1. Phonological awareness activities occur but in limited quan-tity and scope.

2. The phonological awareness activities of segmenting andblending that are most highly correlated with beginning reading ac-quisition are simply not included in any of the basal reading pro-grams.

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3. Strategies for teaching students to manipulate the sounds oflanguage are often not conspicuous and do not appear to provide thenecessary scaffolding for students with diverse learning needs.

4. The phonological activities required students to manipulateprimarily single-syllable and multisyllable words, instead of pho-neme-level phonologic units.

Simmons et al. (1995) argue that these findings are common tothe design of all four of the programs analyzed and can be construedas reflecting the architectural or pedagogical framework of main-stream commercial reading programsbasic design features thatserve as templates for publishers and developers.

Effective instruction necessarily recognizes that learning buildson prior knowledge. Beyond any collection of compelling objectivesand engaging activities, therefore, effective instruction requires adevelopmental plan that extends across days and weeks of the schoolyear as well as a means for monitoring progress so as to adjust thatplan accordingly. Most basal reading programs do provide such aplan, as embodied in its lesson sequence. To the extent that theseplans are pedagogically well designed, the basal programs can beseen to offer instructional value that extends beyond the specifics oftheir activities and materials. To the extent that the programs alsoprovide a rationale for activities, including tips and tools for moni-toring student progress, they are of great value for improving stu-dent performance in reading (Chall et al., 1990).

The potential benefits of a good basal program would seemespecially significant for novice teachers. Research demonstratesthat, across fields, experts distinguish themselves from novices notmerely in the depth and breadth of their domain-specific knowledge,but also in its organization and integration (see Glaser, 1984), lead-ing to advantages in classroom management, in planning, in clarityof presentation, and in responsiveness to student confusion and ques-tions (Borko and Livingston, 1989; Collins and Stevens, 1982;Leinhardt, 1987; Leinhardt and Greeno, 1986).

There is no reason in principle why existing basal programsshould not offer manageable, effective, and classroom-friendly in-structional guidance. Do they? Unfortunately, the instructional


efficacy of commercial basal programs is rarely evaluated and, atpresent, we can identify no objective, empirically sound evaluationof major kindergarten offerings. Given the programs' potential forsupporting teachers, as well as teachers' widespread use and evendependence on these programs in the classroom, such evaluationshould be a priority for public policy.

Conclusion

Kindergarten is offered in nearly every state and is mandatory inmany. It thus offers itself as a nearly universal, publicly fundedopportunity for providing children the literacy preparation they need.In too many schools, however, that opportunity is not used well.Research consistently points to the importance of ensuring that chil-dren enter first grade with the attitudes and knowledge about lit-eracy that will enable them to succeed in learning to read. A strongmessage of this report is that a priority mission of every schooldistrict in the United States should be to provide good kindergartenliteracy preparation to all children.

FIRST GRADE

Fostering Reading in the First-Grade Classroom

The primary job of first-grade teachers is to make sure that all oftheir students become readers. Given the current variability in com-mitment to kindergarten literacy preparation and the widely varyingcapacities and needs in any group of first graders, this is a challengewhose importance is exceeded only by its complexity.

First-grade instruction should be designed to provide:

explicit instruction and practice with sound structures thatlead to phonemic awareness;familiarity with spelling-sound correspondences and commonspelling conventions, and their use in identifying printedwords;sight recognition of frequent words; andindependent reading, including reading aloud.

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Well-written and engaging texts that include words that childrencan decipher give them the chance to apply emerging skills with easeand accuracy, thereby teaching themselves new words through theirrelation to known words. In addition, the instructional programshould ensure that children have exposure to the following activities:

Throughout the early grades, time, materials, and resourcesshould be provided (a) to consolidate independent reading abilitythrough daily reading of texts selected to be of particular interestand beneath the frustration level of individual students and (b) topromote advances in reading through daily assisted or supportedreading and rereading of texts that are slightly more difficult inwording or in linguistic, rhetorical, or conceptual structure.

Beginning in the earliest grades, instruction should promotecomprehension by actively building linguistic and conceptual knowl-edge in a rich variety of domains.

Throughout the early grades, reading curricula should in-clude explicit instruction on strategies, such as summarizing the mainidea, predicting events or information to which the text is leading,drawing inferences, and monitoring for misunderstandings, that areused to comprehend text (either read to the students or that studentsread themselves).

Instruction should be designed with the understanding thatthe use of invented spelling is not in conflict with teaching correctspelling. Beginning writing with invented spelling can be helpful fordeveloping understanding of phoneme identity, phoneme segmenta-tion, and sound-spelling relationships. Conventionally correct spell-ing should be developed through focused instruction and practice.Primary-grade children should be expected to spell previously stud-ied words and spelling patterns correctly in their final writing prod-ucts.

As in the case of kindergarten instruction, activities and materi-als for supporting appropriate instruction in the first-grade class-room abound and include many of the types of materials describedearlier. The strategies chosen to engage children's interest and atten-tion in these activities and materials determine their effectiveness. In

20S


the sections below we present several types of research on effectivefirst-grade reading instruction. The studies presented are ones thatin the committee's judgment best represent the converging evidencefrom observational studies, from experimental training studies thathave taken place in controlled settings, and from studies in class-room settings.

Outstanding Teachers

Outstanding teachers can make a big difference in a child's graspof reading. Outstanding teachers have been characterized in re-search studies as effectively and deliberately planning their instruc-tion to meet the diverse needs of children in a number of ways.Techniques include:

creating a literate environment in which children have accessto a variety of reading and writing materials;

presenting explicit instruction for reading and writing, bothin the context of "authentic" and "isolated" practice;

creating multiple opportunities for sustained reading practicein a variety of formats, such as choral, individual, and partner read-ing;

carefully choosing instructional-level text from a variety ofmaterials, with a reliance on literature, big books, and linking read-ing and writing activities;

adjusting the mode (grouping) and explicitness of instructionto meet the needs of individual students;

encouraging self-regulation through cognitive monitoringstrategies; and

"masterful" management of activity, behavior, and resources.

A recent observational and survey study conducted by the Na-tional Reading Research Center examined the literacy instruction of123 outstanding primary teachers (identified by supervisor referrals)in general and special education classes (Pressley et al., 1996). Thestudy suggests that excellent teachers effectively cover the key as-pects of literacy (see Box 6-2). Other studies confirm this finding

21C,

(Mfg.INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES 1-97

BOX 6-2High-Quality Teaching: One Classroom

In Ms. Levine's first-grade reading class, each of her students had hisor her own basket of books, chosen to match their ability. The bulletinboards offered children word attack strategies. The children's journalswere full of writing. The class had only 18 children, 9 of whom have limit-ed English ability and 12 of whom are living in poverty.

For two and a half hours, the children moved at an upbeat and ener-gized pace from one interesting and valuable activity to another. Everytime the children started getting restless, it seemed to be time to move toa new activity. The children were:

reading independently,reading in pairs (shoulder to shoulder),reading in groups of four,spelling, andwriting and writing some more.

While the children worked individually or in groups by themselves, Ms.Levine taught other children individually or in small groups. She thenbrought the whole class together to teach a phonics lesson on the awsound in words like drawing. Without prompting, children clapped out thesounds in the words. Next she read two books to her students, one fictionand one nonfiction, and talked with them about the content of thosebooks. They reviewed what helped them in understanding the book.

-(korkeamaki and Dreher, 1996; Tyler, 1993). Box 6-3 provides.:amore detailed example of a good teacher at work with her class onliteracy activities.

Although portraits of excellent and highly effective teachers areinspiring, we must recognize that the vast majority of children aretaught to read by average rather than exceptional teachers. We needto know more about the typical instruction provided by typical teach-ersthe sources of knowledge they possess and the range of practiceand learning opportunities they provide to their students. We turn inthe next section to research carried out with teachers across the fullrange of abilities.


BOX 6-3Word Wall and Making Words

Researchers have documented one first-grade teacher's method tomeet the diverse literacy needs of her students through whole-class read-ing instruction (Cunningham and Cunningham, 1992; Cunningham et al.,1991). The daily two-hour language arts period was organized into fourdistinct half-hour instructional blocks devoted to (1) process writing in-struction, (2) basal reading instruction, (3) independent free-choice read-ing of trade books, and (4) word study instruction.

The word study block is the central focus of this discussion. It consistsof two primary activities, word wall and making words. The word wallserves as a foundation for spelling instruction and practice, using fivewords selected each week from a basal reading lesson or the children'swriting. These words are posted and, as a whole group, the childrenpractice reading and spelling them, with a daily chanting-clapping-writingroutine. New words are added weekly, and a subset is practiced daily.

Making words is part of the instruction in phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, and spelling patterns. For this activity, each childhas a set of 26 letter cards, with corresponding uppercase and lowercaseletters printed on either side (vowels in red, consonants in black). Theteacher displays one or two vowels and three or more consonants to thewhole class. After the children locate the same letters from their owncollections, the teacher calls out a word for the children to make. A two-letter word is presented first, with succeeding words using more letters:12 to 15 additional words are spelled daily in this manner and added tothe display.

The highlight of this daily routine is the mystery wordone that re-quires use of all the selected letters. The teacher does not identify thisword; the children are encouraged to discover it on their own. Subse-quently, the teacher and the children together explore the new words,sorting by various spelling or phonetic features, such as word families,rhymes, and common vowel and consonant combinations.

The making words activity is an engaging medium for explicit instruc-tion about specific spelling-sound correspondences and the alphabeticprinciple in general. It also provides opportunities for self-assessmentand correction, as each new word is displayed and the children comparetheir spelling construction with that of the teacher. It supports childrenwho are struggling to recognize letters automatically by limiting the num-ber of letters encountered at once. Meanwhile, the physical manipulationof the letter cards accommodates children who might otherwise have dif-ficulty sustaining their attention in whole-group instruction. Finally, theactivity is inherently motivational, since children at all levels of achieve-ment can experience both success and instructional challenge as thelessons proceed from simple to more complex.


Three Approaches to First-Grade Instruction

Three classroom approaches represent three distinct and fre-quently discussed views on explicitly how to develop beginners'phonics and decoding skills in a print-rich environment:

1. whole language in which the emphasis is on connected text,with alphabetic learning assumed to go on implicitly;

2. embedded phonics in which sound-spelling patterns are sys-tematically embedded in connected text; and

3. direct code, in which letter-sound correspondences and prac-tice take place with various kinds of text.

In Box 6-4, we present brief portraits of these three approaches,which are widely used in first-grade classrooms. These portraits arebased on a recent study that evaluated the effects of classroom in-struction as practiced by teachers representative of the typical rangeof ability in a Houston metropolitan area school district (Foorman etal., 1998). In reviewing instructional methods and actual classroompractice, it becomes clear that there is enormous variability in howteachers actually conduct their classes. One whole-language class-room may look nothing like another. Thus, the illustrations of in-struction in this box are not assumed to be highly representative butrather possible realizations of the basic approach.

Whole-Language Instruction

As defined in the Foorman study, the principle governing in-struction in the classroom using the implicit code or whole-languageframework is to give priority in reading and writing activities to thechild's construction of meaning. Phonics lessons are conducted op-portunistically in the context of meaningful reading and writing.The teacher is conceived as the facilitator rather than the director oflearning. Authentic performance-based assessments, such as portfo-lio entries, are preferred to formal or skill-focused assessments ofprogress.


BOX 6-4Three Approaches to First-Grade Instruction

Using Whole-Language Instruction

Ms. A began the language arts block by writing the date on the boardand having the childrenseated on the floor in front of herchoral readthe sentence as she pointed to each word. Then Ms. A pointed to thedecorations on the walls, to the trade books visible around the room, andto the big book on the easel and reminded the children that the theme forthe week was Thanksgiving.

She asked the children why we celebrate Thanksgiving and, fromamong the enthusiastic flutter of hands, selected one child, who respond-ed, "To celebrate the good food we eat." The teacher nodded and asked,"And what kind of food do we tend to eat on Thanksgiving?" Again, fromamong the even more enthusiastic waving of hands, Ms. A selected an-other child, who proudly announced, "My grandma makes turkey andstuffing." Comments of "Mine too!" and "Pumpkin pie" were offered byother children. Ms. A wrote turkey and pumpkin on the chalkboard andasked the children to repeat after her as she read these words.

Then she proceeded to introduce the big book, explaining that it wasabout a Thanksgiving feast. She named the title, author, and illustrator,pointing to each word as she said it. She asked the children to nameother books by the same author.

Then Ms. A opened the book and introduced the main character, Pam.She covered up the letters -am and asked what the first sound of the girl'sname was. A girl in the front row confidently proclaimed "/p/." Ms. Apraised this response and proceeded to read the story, pointing to eachword.

When Ms. A came to the word pumpkin, she pointed to the first letterand asked who remembered which sound that letter made. She ignoredhands from the front row and called upon a child in the back who tenta-tively ventured "/p/?"

Ms. A smiled and announced, "Good job!" Then, underscoring the restof the word, she pointed to the pictures of pumpkins on the page with herother hand and asked. "Now, what does this word say?" The childrenchimed in "Pumpkin!" Ms. A continued reading the big book in this man-ner, periodically drawing their attention to the sounds of initial letters andurging them to use context clues to guess the meaning of words.

Then Ms. A told all but eight children to return to their seats and todraw a picture and/or write about their favorite Thanksgiving food. Shegathered the eight children around her and passed out individual copiesof the book just shared in the big book format. She had the childrenchoral read the story with her, pointing to each word as they read. At the


BOX 6-4 Continued

end of the story she asked the children if they thought Pam had a goodThanksgiving dinner. Then she passed out pieces of paper that had theprompt "I like to eat ." She read the stem to the children and thenasked them to complete the sentence by writing down what they like toeat. If they wanted help with writing a word, she encouraged them to saythe word slowly, syllable by syllable, and to write the letters for eachsound they heard.

When one child asked how to write "pie," Ms. A modeled the soundingout] "/p/ /if' and accepted the child's spelling of pi with "That's very good!Why don't you draw a picture of the kind of pie you like to eat for Thanks-giving and we'll add that to your portfolio."

Next Ms. A planned to read a story about the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiv-ing. Then she would have them act out the story, donning the Pilgrim andNative American hats they had cut out yesterday.

Using Embedded Phonics

Ms. B started the language arts block with a morning message, usingyesterday's target spelling pattern, -am.

She wrote "Sam will be 15 years young on tuesday" Then she askedthe children to help her edit the message. They changed young to oldand pointed out that Sam will be 7, not 15. With prompting, they agreedto capitalize the t in Tuesday and add a period at the end of the sentence.

Ms. B's target spelling pattern for the day was -ap. She introduced thispattern through shared reading of a big book. During this shared readingthe teacher pointed to each word in the big book as she read the story,occasionally checking the understanding of the 22 children seated cross-legged in front of her by asking a question about the story. When shecame to a word containing the target pattern, tap. she stopped readingthe story, wrote tap on the blackboard and asked the children what wordfamily tap belonged to. Then Ms. B asked what other words belonged tothe -ap word family. Hands shot up in the front row with suggestions ofmap. rap, and slap. She asked the children to spell these words to her asshe wrote them on the board. The children had trouble with the / in slap,so Ms. B had the children stretch out the sounds so that the letter /I/ wasapparent.

After writing these words on the blackboard, Ms. B sent all but eight ofthe students to their seats. A strip of construction paper and a pile ofalphabet letters from a bag of cereal were placed at each seat. Studentswere instructed to glue the letters -ap onto the construction paper andmake new words by adding letters to the front. One student made pay

continued on next page


BOX 6-4 Continued

and was not corrected because the teacher was busy working with the

group of eight. When students were finished with this seat work, they

were told to read independently a book of their choice.Ms. B worked with the group of eight by writing yesterday's spelling

pattern, -am, on a slate board. She elicited words with this pattern in itclam, slam, ramand wrote them down. She checked their understand-ing of ram by asking a student to use it in a sentence. Then she passed

out copies of a book to each child that had the word family in it. The

children were familiar with the story and read along with the teacher inchoral reading. When they had finished, she gave them each a laminated

tag board mat and laminated letters. She asked them to write somewords with the -am pattern while she listened to one of the children read

the story. As he read, Ms. B took a running record of his reading mis-cues, prompting him to use context cues to guess the meaning of un-known words. Finally, Ms. B introduced a new book to the children thatcontained the spelling pattern of the day, -ap. She previewed each page,

eliciting prior knowledge from the students by asking them to expand on

their interpretations of illustrations. Then she put the book in a plastic bag

for each child to take home and practice reading with a parent.With 30 minutes left in the language arts block, Ms. B began a process

writing workshop on Thanksgiving activities. Students brainstormedabout Thanksgiving activities while the teacher wrote down sentences

that expressed their ideas. If previously taught spelling patterns ap-peared, she pointed that out. Once the brainstorming was complete,students wrote about their favorite Thanksgiving activity.

Using Direct Code Instruction

Ms. C started the language arts block by having the children sit cross-

legged in front of her and playing a game that practiced discriminating the

previously taught consonants m and h. After writing these letters on op-

posite sides of the chalkboard and asking the children to say their sounds,

Ms. C explained that she would say words that would have either the /m/

or the /h/ sound at the beginning and that they should point to the corre-sponding letter on the board when they heard its sound.

Then Ms. C introduced an oral blending activity by explaining that she

would tell them a story and might need their help blending some of the

words. She started out: "The old brown frog sat in the /s/ /u/ /n/. Where

did the frog sit?" After finishing the story, Ms. C brought out the children's

favorite puppet, Emmett, and said that they were going to play the game

they'd played the day before where the children corrected the puppet

when he left out a sound. For example, Ms. C would say "loud" and

216


BOX 6-4 ContinuedEmmett would reply "lour The children eagerly chimed in: "No, loud!/d/, /d/, loud!"

The phonics part of the lesson consisted of introducing /p/ spelled p.Ms. C turned over the Sound/Spelling Card 16, Popcorn, posted abovethe blackboard with all the other cards. To introduce the /p/ sound and itsspelling, Ms. C read the popcorn story, starting with: "Ping and Pong liketo pop popcorn. As it cooks, it makes this sound: /p/ /p/ /p/ /p/ /p/ /p/ /p/."In subsequent stanzas, the children joined in, making the /p/ sound veryfast. Then Ms. C wrote p on the blackboard and asked the children totrace the letter p on the rug. After that, she taught them how to hold up afist and burst open their fingers like a kernel of corn popping whenever(giving her a way to see which children were and were not catching on)she pronounced a word beginning with the /p/ sound (e.g., choosingamong the set: popcorn, chair, peanut, pumpkin) and, later, ending withthe /p/ sound (e.g., top, dog, snoop). Then she asked the children tosuggest some words that begin with /p/. When one child suggested"pumpkin pie," Ms. C nodded and asked how many children had hadpumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner last week.

The next activity consisted of blending words and sentences. Ms. Cbuilt words at the board spelling by spelling, encouraging the children tosay each sound with her (/p/ /a/, /pa/ /m/, Pam), then to reread it with anatural intonation. She checked their knowledge of capitalization by ask-ing why Pam begins with a capital letter. Then she wrote "I am Pam" onthe board, underlining I because it was an "outlaw" word that they wouldnot be sounding out.

Then Ms. C read a rhyming story that she had written on chart paperresting on an easel. First, she read the title "Dan the Man and His FatCat," and then read the story while pointing to each word. The childrenwere able to chime in because of the predictable rhyme patterns. Afterfinishing the story, Ms. C asked if any children had a cat at home and, ifso, did their cat behave like this cat. With about 30 minutes remaining inthe language arts block, Ms. C dismissed all but eight children to theirseats to work on a worksheet that provided additional practice with /p/spelled p (followed by independent reading in a book of their choice).With the remaining eight children she passed out bags of letter cards, a,h, m, p, and t, and engaged them in a word-building game to spell sam,ham, hat, and pat. As the children worked on building words. Ms. Ccompleted an assessment form, noting each child's progress on the skillstaught. Later, she shared a big book about animal habitats and diets withthe children, developing their vocabulary and language while encourag-ing them to discuss and wonder about the sometimes strange animalbehaviors described and depicted.

217


Embedded Phonics Instruction

In the classrooms Foorman et al. (1998) examined using embed-ded phonics, phonics instruction was sequenced according to a list ofrhyming word families. At the outset of a phonics lesson, teacherspresent a word containing the target spelling pattern and, by deletingthe word's initial consonant or consonant cluster, direct attention tothe spelling and sound of its remainder. By substituting differentbeginning sounds and spellings, students are led to generalize thepattern to new words. Teachers are also given a list of trade bookscontaining words corresponding to each of the instructed spellingpatterns. The spelling patterns are then practiced by the children incontext through repeated readings of these books, complementedwith writing activities in instruction.

The embedded phonics approach has also been shown to bemore effective for disadvantaged students than the whole-languageapproach in a study conducted by its developers (Hiebert et al.,1992).

Direct Code Instruction

The first phase of direct code instruction focuses on establish-ing the children's basic knowledge and understandings about howprint works through linguistic awareness activities, the use of bigbooks, writing, and language games and rebus activities. The secondphase focuses on learning to read and spell words independently.Letter-sound correspondences and spelling conventions are explic-itly taught and interactively practiced and extended. Independentreading is introduced through a graduated series of books, methodi-cally designed to review/offer practice with the sight words and phon-ics lessons to date. The purpose is to secure the strategy: if youdon't recognize a word, sound it out. In the third phase, the childrenuse anthologies and trade books to develop reading strategies andpractice phonics, spelling, and writing.

21c


Comparison

The Foorman study compared the effects of the three types ofinstruction for 285 children in eight elementary schools in a Hous-ton metropolitan area school district that serves a high proportion ofstudents at risk for reading failure (Foorman et al., 1998). Thestudents were three to eight economically disadvantaged children ineach regular education classroom who received services through TitleI (the federal school aid program serving poor, underachieving stu-dents); the sample was 60 percent African American, 20 percentHispanic, and 20 percent white. Although both first- and second-grade classrooms were included, the second graders were beingtaught using the first-grade sequence of instruction because of theirlow achievement.

There were 53 volunteer teachers: 19 using whole-language in-struction, 20 using embedded phonics, and 14 using direct codeinstruction. Professional development sessions for all teachers wereconducted by members of the research staff who had teaching expe-rience and were strong proponents of the approach for which theywere responsible. In addition, an "unseen control" group of 13teachers using whole-language instruction (the district's standardinstruction) was trained and supervised by district personnel. Bi-monthly monitoring confirmed that classroom teachers in the studygenerally complied with their assigned instructional approaches. Theinstructional groups had similar scores on baseline word reading andphonological processing.

Controlling for differences in age, ethnicity, and verbal IQ, theresearchers found that children taught via the direct code approachimproved in word reading at a faster rate and had higher wordrecognition skills than children receiving whole-language instruction(either the research-based or the district's standard version). Fur-thermore, whereas a relatively large percentage of children in thetwo whole-language groups and the embedded phonics group exhib-ited no measurable gains in word reading over the school year, thedirect instruction group showed growth in word reading that ap-peared more or less normally distributed.

21c.


Despite lower reading performance, children in the research-based whole-language group had more positive attitudes towardreading, a finding consistent with other research (e.g., Stahl et al.,1994). A positive attitude toward reading, although not associatedwith higher performance in beginning reading, may enable studentsto sustain an interest in reading through the upper grades. Somedecoding skill is likely to be needed before known orthographicrimes are spontaneously used to read unknown words by analogy, sothe embedded phonics approach may have positive effects that takelonger to be realized. As with any other intervention study, longer-term follow-up with these children is clearly indicated.

The results of this study indicate that early instructional inter-vention makes a difference for the development and outcomes ofreading skills among first- and second-grade children at risk forreading failure. However, not all interventions are equal. Theamount of improvement in word-reading skill appears to be associ-ated with the degree of explicitness in the instructional method.Furthermore, children with higher phonological processing scores atthe beginning of the year demonstrated greater improvement inword-reading skills in all instructional groups. Explicit instructionin the alphabetic principle was more effective with children whobegan the year doing poorly in phonological processing.

Basal Programs

The analysis of basal reading programs discussed in the sectionabove on kindergarten covered first-grade versions of the programsas well (Stein et al., 1993). The study summarized the practicessupported by the basal programs that dominated the first-grade mar-ket just a few years ago, analyzing their content in four major areas.Table 6-2 presents these areas, their definitions, and the percentageof the programs that included each area.

A notable aspect of Stein's first-grade analysis is the variabilitywith which major instructional categories are emphasized by thedifferent basal programs. As the table shows, although the pro-grams unanimously support instruction on reading comprehension,few programs emphasize the development of reading fluency, and

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the extent to which they support oral reading development is un-clear. Moreover, the cells with lowest percentages of support centeron two categories of instruction: explicit teaching and application ofthe alphabetic principle and writing. Ironically, these relatively ne-glected instructional components are among those whose impor-tance is most strongly supported by research. These are the compo-nents that have repeatedly been shown to distinguish programs ofexceptional instructional efficacy; they also correspond to the abili-ties that are found to be differentially underdeveloped in studentswith reading difficulty.

Programs that ignore necessary instructional components tacitlydelegate the pedagogical support on which their sales are predicatedto the intervention of teachers, tutors, or parents. Even when a pro-gram does address key instructional components, it may or may notdo so with clarity or effect. In this vein, a particular problem is thecurrently popular publishing strategy of accommodating the rangeof student interests and teacher predilections by providing activitiesto please everyone in each lesson. By making it impossible for teach-ers to pursue all suggestions, the basal programs make it necessaryfor teachers to ignore some of them. A good basal program shouldclearly distinguish key from optional activities.

Basal programs are used in the majority of first-grade classroomsin the United States and thus have substantial influence on bothclassroom practice and teacher development. In view of this, guide-lines and procedures for aligning their instructional goals and meth-ods with research are urgently needed, as are policies for requiringempirical evaluation of their instructional efficacy.

SECOND AND THIRD GRADES

Fostering Independent and Productive Reading

In first grade, the challenge for children is to learn how to read.In fourth grade and up, it is taken for granted that they are ca-pableindependently and productivelyof reading to learn. Writ-ten language becomes both the primary and the fallback mediumthrough which they are expected to acquire and demonstrate their

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TABLE 6-2 Analysis of First-Grade Basal Reading Programs

ContentArea

SubcategorieswithDefinitions

Decoding Instruction

Sound/symbolrelationships:activities thatpromote therelationship betweenletters and sounds

Phonemic Awareness:games or activitiesthat focus on wordsand their phonemicelements, oralsegmenting andblending activities,oral syllabication,and rhyming activities

Decoding strategy

Explicitstudents sawletters in isolation andare taught theircorresponding sounds.

Implicitletters andtheir sounds arepresented within thecontext of a word.

It should be noted that,to discriminate phonemicawareness from decodingstrategy instruction,only oral activities areincluded in thiscategory.

Explicitstudents areencouraged to readunknown words byexamining the individualletters and sounds.

Implicitstudents areencouraged to readunknown words bymaking associations withknown letters or words.

Explicit blendingstudents encourages toread unknown words byexamining the individualletters and sounds andblending them together.

2 '.6

Includedat HighLevels

Includedat MinimalLevels

(0/0) (%)

30 20

70

60 40

30 10

70 10

20 10

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TABLE 6-2 Continued

ContentArea

SubcategorieswithDefinitions

Included Includedat High at MinimalLevels Levels(%) (%)

Reading Text

Text characteristics

Relationship ofinstruction to text

Mode of reading test

Includes activities topromote fluency

Word lists and/or 4individual sentences

Connected textBoth

10100

Observable relationship: 100activities designedspecifically to help studentsdecode the text selection.

Observable phonicsrelationship: text clearlywritten to provide multipleexamples of the phonicsinstruction in the program.

OrallySilentlyBoth

40

100

0

1010

Activities explicitly labeled 40 10as opportunities forstudents to build readingfluency.

Reading Comprehension and Writing

Activities to promoteunderstanding of thetext prior to readingActivities during readingActivities after reading Teacher-directed

Independent

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100

100100100

continued on next page

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TABLE 6-2 Continued

Included IncludedSubcategories at High at Minimal

Content with Levels LevelsArea Definitions (%) (%)

Comprehension skill/strategy training:activities designed toteach studentsgeneralizable andstrategic skills such assequencing ordiscriminating fact fromfiction these activitiesneed not be directlyrelated to a specific textselection

100

Composing activitiesActivities that require students to compose text

Related to text selection 20 40Independent of textselection

10 5

Both 30 30

SOURCE: Based on Stein et al. (1993).

understanding of school knowledge. By the time students enterfourth grade, it is therefore imperative that their ability to read besufficiently well developed that it not impede their capacity to com-prehend and that their ability to comprehendto analyze, critique,abstract, and reflect on textbe adequate to profit from the learningopportunities ahead.

The second and third grades are critical school years for ensuringthat all students can make this transition, by building their capacityto comprehend more difficult and more varied texts. At the sametime, the curriculum must be designed with due recognition thatstudents' higher-order comprehension can be limited not only by thepresence or absence but also by the automaticity of lower-level skills.Higher-order comprehension processes are necessarily thought in-

0 1 4


tensive. They require analytic, evaluative, and reflective access tolocal and long-term memory. Yet active attention is limited. To theextent that readers must struggle with recognizing the words of atext, they lose track of meaning (Daneman and Tardiff, 1987;Perfetti, 1985).

Word Recognition, Reading Fluency, and Spelling

By the end of third grade, students should possess the skills,habits, and learning strategies needed for fourth grade success. Thismeans not only that students should be reading on grade level butalso that they should be demonstrably prepared to discuss, learnabout, and write about the ideas and information encountered intheir texts. By the end of second grade, students should have beenintroduced, with guidance, to representative types of text-basedlearning and performance to come and should be reading at leastsimple chapter books and other texts of their choice with comfortand understanding. At the beginning of second grade, however, thereading of many children is too laborious and unsure to admit inde-pendent reading or understanding of any but the simplest of texts.

At least in early acquisition, reading ability is a bit like foreignlanguage ability: use it or lose it, and the more tenuous the knowl-edge, the greater the loss. Thus, the well-documented and substan-tial losses in reading ability that are associated with summer vaca-tion are especially marked for younger and poorer readers (Hayesand Grether, 1983; Alexander and Entwisle, 1996). On the first dayof school, second-grade teachers thus typically find themselves facedwith two sets of students. A few are reading independently at rela-tively advanced levels; typically these are students who read wellenough at the end of first grade to read on their own during thesummer. Many other students seem not to know how to read at all.Most of the latter have simply forgotten what they learned in thefirst grade, but some failed to learn to read adequately in the firstplace. As quickly as possible, the second-grade teacher's job is tofigure out which group is which and to ensure that all students gainor regain the first-grade accomplishments and move on.


Second-grade basal reading programs generally provide little helptoward this end, as they start where they left off at the end of gradeone. Given well-structured review, children who have simply forgot-ten will generally recover quickly. In contrast, for children who fellor sneaked through the cracks in first grade, identification and assis-tance are urgent. In school lore, second grade is broadly viewed aschildren's last chance. Those who are not on track by third gradehave little chance of ever catching up (Bloom, 1964; Carter, 1984;Shaywitz et al., 1992).

A major task for the second-grade teacher, then, is to ensure thatall students understand the nature and utility of the alphabetic prin-ciple. To develop the children's phonemic awareness and knowledgeof basic letter-sound correspondences, spelling instruction is impor-tant. Beginning with short, regular words, such as pot, pat, and pan,the focus of these instructional activities is gradually extended tomore complex spelling patterns and words, including long vowelspellings, inflections, and so on.

In later grades, such instruction should extend to spellings andmeanings of prefixes, suffixes, and word roots: leading children tonotice such patterns across many different examples supports learn-ing the target words and helps children transfer spelling patterns andword analysis strategies beyond the lesson, into their own readingand writing (Calfee and Henry, 1986; Henry, 1989). Several guidesfor spelling instruction (e.g., Bear et al., 1996; Moats, 1995; Moatsand Foorman, 1997) based on research on spelling development(e.g., Templeton and Bear, 1992; Treiman, 1993) are available, al-though no evaluative data on their effectiveness in ordinary class-rooms exists.

When readers cannot recognize a word or a spelling pattern andhave no one to ask, they have one of two options. They can usecontext or pictures to guess or finesse its identity, or they can soundit out. Each of these options produces its own patterns of error anddysfluency. Laboratory research with good and poor readers atsecond grade and beyond has repeatedly demonstrated that, whereasgood readers become as fast and accurate at recognizing words with-out context as with, poor readers as a group remain differentiallydependent on context. An overreliance on context is symptomatic

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that orthographic processing is proceeding neither quickly nor com-pletely enough to do its job.

For readers who are progressing normally, it is often not beforethe middle of second grade that the ability to read with expressivefluency and comprehension emerges reliably (Chall, 1983; Gates,1947; Gray, 1937; Ilg and Ames, 1950). Clinical (Harris and Sipay,1975) evidence and laboratory (Stanovich, 1984) evidence concurthat children who can read second-grade texts accurately can readand learn from text with reasonable efficiency and productivity ontheir own, provided the text level is appropriate. One of the mostimportant questions for second- and third-grade teachers is thereforehow best to help children reach this level. Given that the goal is tohelp children learn to read the words and understand them too, apromising tactic would seem to be to engage them in more connectedreading of appropriate text.

It has long been appreciated that a critical factor in consideringthe learning impact of time spent reading is the difficulty of the textrelative to the student's ability. Common terms to describe differ-ences among text are the following:

The independent reading level is the highest level at which achild can read easily and fluently: without assistance, with fewerrors in word recognition, and with good comprehension and re-call.

The instructional level is the highest level at which the childcan do satisfactory reading provided that he or she receives prepara-tion and supervision from a teacher: errors in word recognition arenot frequent, and comprehension and recall are satisfactory.

The frustration level is the level at which the child's readingskills break down: fluency disappears, errors in word recognition arenumerous, comprehension is faulty, recall is sketchy, and signs ofemotional tension and discomfort become evident (cited in Harrisand Sipay, 1975).

Regardless of a child's reading ability, if too many of the wordsof a text are problematic, both comprehension and reading growthitself are impeded. As a general rule, it has been suggested that error


rates for younger poorer readers should not exceed 1 word in 20(Clay, 1985; Wixson and Lipson, 1991). If the goal is to increasereading proficiency as quickly as possible, however, this creates adilemma: whereas children are capable of learning little from textthat is beyond their independent level, there is little new for them tolearn from text that is beneath their instructional level.

When the goal is to help students conquer any particular text,one widely validated practice is that of asking students to read itseveral times over (Samuels et al., 1994). The effect of repeatedreading practice generalizes to new texts only if the overlap of occur-rence of specific words is high between the texts (Faulkner and Levy,1994; Rashotte and Torgeson, 1985). Researchers using this ap-proach have recently reported some promising, if small sample, re-sults with poor readers in third and fourth grades (Shany andBiemiller, 1995). Instead of using repeated readings of any singlepassage, the children read from basal reading series that, in the styleof the 1960s, were designed to repeat new words across selections.Each child in the experimental condition began at a level in the seriesthat matched her or his own independent reading level. Each wasthen asked to read successive selections from these books for 30minutes a day, four times a week, for 16 weeks. Half the childrenwere assisted by a teacher who helped with word recognition asneeded; the other half read in tandem with an audiotape machinewhose rate was adjustable from 80 to 120 words per minute.

Over the course of the intervention, the children in the teacher-assisted group read five times more words of text than their ability-matched classroom controls; those in the tape-assisted groupcovered 10 times more words of text than the controls. Both experi-mental groups made significantly greater gains than controls in speedand comprehension of connected reading.

Comprehension and Fluency

In a more ambitious intervention, Stahl et al. (1997) reorganizedthe entire reading program in 14 second-grade classrooms in aneffort to accelerate reading growth. The schools were in mixed- tolower-income districts. On testing in October of second grade, the

22 c,


children ranged from virtual nonreaders to those who could readcomfortably at the fourth-grade level; of the 230 children in all 14classrooms, 120 were reading at or above grade level. In theseclassrooms, the teachers introduced each new basal selection by read-ing it aloud. The discussion following the reading of the selectionwas complemented with teacher- and student-generated questionsand vocabulary work. In addition, the selection was explored moreanalytically with the help of a variety of organizational frames suchas story maps, plot charts, and Venn diagrams. Children in need ofextra help were pulled aside for echo reading: each paragraph wasread first by the teacher and then by the students. That evening,each student was to read the selection again at home, preferablyaloud to a parent.

The next day, students paired up, taking turns reading each pageor paragraph to each other. The partner reading routine was pur-sued for three reasons. First, reading with another was useful inkeeping children engaged and on task. Second, the teacher couldeasily monitor progress and performance by moving around the class-room and listening. Third, following Chall's (1983) recommenda-tion, the researchers sought to increase students' amount of oralreading.

For further reinforcement, a variety of other options wereadopted from time to time, such as having each child practice read-ing one part of the selection for performance; students still havingdifficulty were asked to reread the selection at least one more time athome. Each selection was also reviewed by completing journals inpairs or as a class. In addition to this work with the basal selections,children were asked to read books of their own choice, both duringeach school day for 15-20 minutes and at home. In short, the pro-gram was set up to promote comprehension growth while encourag-ing a great deal of reading and rereading for building reading flu-ency. Responses to the program were strongly positive from bothteachers and students.

Oral reading growth was assessed by asking a subsample of 89students to read aloud both familiar and previously unseen excerptsfrom their basal reader in November, January, and May. Growthwas most pronounced for children who had been reading at or above


the primer level at the start of the year, and it was fastest betweenNovember and January. Due to ceiling effects, improvement amongthe children who began the year above the second-grade level couldnot be measured. The group that started the year below the primerlevel never caught up; their readings of the basal passages continuedto be slow and error prone.

Impact of the intervention was also measured by using Leslie andCaldwell's (1988) Qualitative Reading Inventory. This test consistsof graded passages for oral reading, each accompanied by compre-hension questions. Growth across the school year averaged 1.88and 1.77 grade levels for the 4 and 10 classrooms that respectivelyparticipated in the first and second years of the study. Of the 190students who started second grade at the primer level or above, only5 were still unable to read at the second-grade level by spring. For20 who could not read even the primer on entry, 9 reached orsurpassed the second-grade level by spring, and all but one couldread at least at the primer level.

Thus, although about 10 percent of the children were still per-forming below grade level, and although results are measured againstexpectable gains rather than against the performance of a controlgroup, the outcomes of the study are impressive. It was also longerin duration and broader in scope than most other second-grade read-ing interventions. In particular, its scope embraced both fluency andcomprehension support; children need both.

Comprehension and Word Knowledge

Mature readers construct meaning at two levels. One level workswith the words of the text for a literal understanding of what theauthor has written. However, superior word recognition abilities donot necessarily translate into superior levels of reading achievement(Chall et al., 1990). Productive reading involves, in addition toliteral comprehension, being able to answer such questions as: Whyam I reading this and how does this information relate to my reasonsfor so doing? What is the author's point of view, what are her or hisunderlying assumptions? Do I understand what the author is sayingand why? Do I know where the author is headed? Is the text

23G


internally consistent? Is it consistent with what I already know orbelieve? If not, where does it depart and what do I think about thediscrepancy? This sort of reflective, purposive understanding goesbeyond the literal to the underlying meaning of the text. For pur-poses of discussion, the development of productive reading compre-hension can be considered in terms of three factors: (1) concept andvocabulary development, (2) command of the linguistic structures ofthe text, and (3) metacognitive or reflective control of comprehen-sion.

Written text places high demands on vocabulary knowledge.Even the words used in children's books are more rare than thoseused in adult conversations and prime-time television (Hayes andAhrens, 1988). Learning new concepts and the words that encodethem is essential for comprehension development. People's ability toinfer or retain new words in general is strongly dependent on theirbackground knowledge of other words and concepts. Even at theyoungest ages, the ability to understand and remember the meaningsof new words depends quite strongly on how well developed one'svocabulary already is (Robbins and Ehri, 1994).

Can children's word knowledge and reading comprehension bemeasurably improved through instruction? The answer is yes, ac-cording to a meta-analysis of relevant research studies by Stahl andFairbanks (1986). First, vocabulary instruction generally does resultin measurable increase in students' specific word knowledge. Some-times and to some degree it also results in better performance onglobal vocabulary measures, such as standardized tests, indicatingthat the instruction has evidently enhanced the learning of wordsbeyond those directly taught. Second, pooling across studies, vo-cabulary instruction also appears to produce increases in children'sreading comprehension. Again, although these gains are largestwhere passages contain explicitly taught words, they are also signifi-cant given general standardized measures.

Looking across studies, Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) noted differ-ences in the effectiveness of vocabulary instruction as well. Methodsproviding repeated drill and practice on word definitions resulted insignificant improvement with the particular words that had beentaught but no reliable effect on reading comprehension scores. In

2 ""


contrast, methods in which children were given both informationabout the words' definitions and examples of the words' usages in avariety of contexts resulted in the largest gains in both vocabularyand reading comprehension.

An important source of word knowledge is exposure to print andindependent reading. As noted above, books introduce children tomore rare words than conversation or television does. So educa-tional approaches that encourage children to read more both inschool and out should increase their word knowledge (Nagy andAnderson, 1984) and reading comprehension (Anderson et al., 1988).However, several efforts to increase the breadth of children's readinghave produced little measurable effect on their reading ability (Carverand Liebert, 1995; see review in Taylor et al., 1990), perhaps be-cause books selected for free reading tend to be at too easy a level formost children (Carver, 1994). Alternately, perhaps children who aredoing poorly are less likely to profit from extensive exposure to printthan children who are already progressing quite well.

One group of researchers reviewed interactions among print ex-posure, word knowledge, and comprehension, teasing apart the rela-tions among prior ability and increased reading (Stanovich et al.,1996). They concluded (p. 29): "In short, exposure to print isefficacious regardless of the level of the child's cognitive and com-prehension abilities. Even children with limited comprehension skillswill build vocabulary and cognitive structures through immersion inliteracy activities. An encouraging message for teachers of low-achieving children is implicit here. We often despair of changing`abilities,' but there is at least one partially malleable habit that willitself develop `abilities'reading."

The relation between print exposure and comprehension neednot be limited to the child's own reading in school. Cain (1996)studied the home literacy activities of 7- and 8-year-olds whose wordreading accuracy was appropriate for their chronological age butwho differed in their comprehension ability. She reports the follow-ing contrasts: "The children who were skilled comprehenders re-ported reading books at home more frequently than the less skilledchildren, and their parents reported that they were more likely toread story books. The skilled comprehenders also reported that they


were read to more frequently at home by their parents than the lessskilled group and this was confirmed by their parents' responses.. . . The skilled children were significantly more likely to read bookswith their parents than were the less skilled children and also tendedto talk about books and stories more frequently than did the lessskilled comprehenders." (Cain, 1996:189)

It might be assumed that reading aloud with a child loses itsvalue once children have attained independent accuracy in readingwords, but Cain's findings raise the possibility that being read topromotes skilled comprehension at ages 7 and 8, although she pointsout that no causal link has yet been demonstrated.

Comprehension and Background Knowledge

The breadth and depth of a child's literacy experiences determinenot only how many and what kinds of words she or he will encoun-ter but also the background knowledge with which a child canconceptualize the meaning of any new word and the orthographicknowledge that frees that meaning from the printed page. Everyopportunity should be taken to extend and enrich children's back-ground knowledge and understanding in every way possible, for theultimate significance and memorability of any word or text dependson whether children possess the background knowledge and concep-tual sophistication to understand its meaning.

A program designed to enhance background knowledge and con-ceptual sophistication among third graders is Concept OrientedReading Instruction (CORI). The emphasis of the program is on thecomprehension of interesting texts. The program is designed aroundbroad interdisciplinary themes, exploiting real-world experiences, arange of cognitive strategies, and social groupings to promote self-direction. Designed for third graders in high-poverty schools with ahistory of low achievement, it has been successfully used at both theclassroom and the whole-school level. The third-grade students haveranged in reading levels from first to fourth grade, and students withlimited English proficiency are mainstreamed and included in theclassroom. The program has effectively increased narrative textcomprehension, expository text comprehension, and other language

2


arts skills on standardized tests, as well as increasing students' per-formance on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program(MSPAP) (Guthrie et al., 1996). Compared to control students,students in the program improved significantly on reading, writing,science, social studies, and language use but not in math, which wasnot taught in the program. CORI has also been shown to increasethe amount and breadth of independent reading and volitional strat-egies for maintaining engagement in reading activities.

Structures, Processes, and Meta-Processes inComprehension Instruction

Research on comprehension among young readers has not re-solved questions about the nature and separate identity of the diffi-culties they encounter as they attempt to understand texts. It isdifficult to tease apart the effect of stores of word knowledge andbackground knowledge from the effect of processes (e.g., identifyingwords quickly and accurately, constructing mental representationsto integrate information from the text) and meta-processes (makinginferences, monitoring for inconsistencies) (Cornoldi and Oak hill,1996). Instruction for comprehension, however, generally focuseson understanding complete connected text in situations in whichmany of the possible difficulties appear bound together and oftencan be treated as a bundle to good effect.

Many comprehension instruction techniques used in schools to-day are described as meta-cognitive. A meta-analysis of 20 meta-cognition instruction programs found a substantial mean effect sizeof .71 (Haller et al., 1988). Instructional programs focusing on self-questioning and identifying text consistencies were found to be mosteffective. A meta-analysis of 10 studies related to a technique calledreciprocal teaching found a median effect size of .88 (Rosenshineand Meister, 1994).

For most active comprehension instruction, whether consideredmeta-cognitive or not, two pedagogic processes are intermingled:traditional instruction in basic stores of knowledge (the backgroundfor the text and for particular words) and instruction in particularcomprehension strategies complemented by the active skilled reading

234


of the text by an expert (the teacher) done in such a way that theordinarily hidden processes of comprehension are displayed (seeKucan and Beck, 1997; Beck and McKeown, 1996). The childrenhave an opportunity to learn from the joint participation (a form ofcognitive apprenticeship) as well as from the particulars in the in-structional agenda. As Baker (1996) notes, it is an open questionwhether direct instruction or observational learning provides thegreater contribution to student progress.

Reciprocal teaching is a particularly interesting approach to con-sider in detail both because of its apparent effectiveness and becauseit illustrates the mixed instructional agenda and pedagogical strate-gies. Reciprocal teaching provides guided practice in the use of fourstrategies (predicting, question generating, summarizing, and clarify-ing) that are designed to enhance children's ability to construct themeaning of text (Palincsar et al., 1993). To engage in reciprocalteaching dialogues, the children and their teacher read a piece ofcommon text. This reading may be done as a read-along, a silentreading, or an oral reading, depending on the decoding abilities ofthe children and the level of the text. The children and the teachertake turns leading the discussion of segments of the text, using strat-egies to support their discussion. The ultimate purpose of the discus-sion, however, is not practice with the strategies but the applicationof the strategies for the purpose of coming to a shared sense of themeaning of the text at hand. The tenets of reciprocal teaching in-clude (a) meaningful use of comprehension-monitoring and compre-hension-fostering strategies; (b) discussion for the purpose of build-ing the meaning of text; (c) the expectation that, when children arefirst beginning these dialogues, they will need considerable supportprovided by the teacher's modeling of the use of the strategies andguiding students' participation in the dialogues; (d) the use of textthat offers appropriate challenges to the children (i.e., there is con-tent worth discussing in the text and the text is sufficiently accessibleto the children); and, finally, (e) the use of text that is thematicallyrelated so that children have/fhe opportunity to build their knowl-edge of a topic or area over time.

Reciprocal teaching was designed as both an intervention to beused with youngsters who were experiencing language-related diffi-


culties and as a means of prevention given the hypothesis that youngchildren should experience reading as a meaningful activity evenbefore they are reading conventionally. It has been investigatedprincipally with children who come from high-poverty areas, chil-dren being served in developmental and remedial reading programs,and children identified as having a language or learning disability.Research on reciprocal teaching with young children in first andsecond grades indicates statistically significant improvement in lis-tening comprehension (which assessed ability to recall information,summarize information, draw inferences from text, and use informa-tion to solve a novel problem) and fewer referrals to special educa-tion or remedial reading programs. In addition, teachers reportedthat, as a result of their experiences in reciprocal teaching dialogues,their expectations regarding these children were raised. In otherwords, children who appeared to have a disability on the basis oftheir participation in the conventional classroom dynamic appearedquite able in the context of reciprocal teaching dialogues.

Training studies on inferences and comprehension monitoringwith 7- and 8-year-olds show that children identified specifically aspoor comprehenders profit differentially from certain kinds of in-struction. Yuill and Oakhill (1988) compared the effect on skilledand less skilled comprehenders (matched for age and reading accu-racy) of a program that lasted for seven 30-minute sessions spreadover about two months. The treatment group worked on lexicalinferences, question generation, and prediction. One control groupread the same texts and answered questions about them in a groupdiscussion format. A second control group read the same texts andpracticed rapid word decoding. There appears to have been aninteraction between aptitude and treatment. Analyses of post-testresults showed that the less skilled comprehenders benefited morefrom the experimental treatment than did the more skilled, that theless skilled comprehenders derived more benefit from the compre-hension training than they did from the rapid decoding condition,but that the more skilled benefited more from the decoding trainingthan from the comprehension training.

Yuill (1996) worked with a similar set of subjects (matched forage and reading accuracy, differing on comprehension ability) to

° 3 E4. , ..


train for the ability to recognize that texts could have more than asingle obvious interpretation by using the genre of riddles, whichdepend on ambiguity and its resolution. The treatment conditionfocused the children on alternative interpretations in texts by train-ing them to explain the ambiguity in riddles; the control group chil-dren also read amusing texts but focused on sublexical awarenessactivities rather than on meta-comprehension activities. At the endof the two-month period, the experimental treatment group per-formed significantly better on the post-test in comprehension thanthe control group did, but there was no significant interaction be-tween skill group and training.

SUMMARY

The nature and quality of classroom literacy instruction are apivotal force in preventing reading difficulties in young children.Adequate initial reading instruction requires a focus on using read-ing to obtain meaning from print; understanding the sublexical struc-ture of spoken words; exposing the nature of the orthographic sys-tem; practice in the specifics of frequent, regular spelling-soundrelationships; and frequent and intensive opportunities to read. Ad-equate progress in learning to read English beyond the initial leveldepends on having established a working understanding of howsounds are represented alphabetically, sufficient practice in readingto achieve fluency with different kinds of texts written for differentpurposes, instruction focused on concept and vocabulary growth,and control over procedures for monitoring comprehension and re-pairing misunderstandings.

Activities designed to ensure these opportunities to learn includepractice in reading (and rereading), writing as a means of word studyand for the purpose of communication, invented spelling as a way toexplore letter-sound relationships, and spelling instruction to en-hance phonemic awareness and letter-sound/sound-letter relation-ships.

The context of the instruction varied considerably across theinterventions considered in this chapter. Although the materialsused ranged widely, a significant shared feature was attention to the


use of continuous text. The characteristics of the texts used includepredictability, the opportunity the text provides to use spelling pat-terns that have been studied, what Juel (1991) refers to as "phono-logically protected" text.

Effective instruction includes artful teaching, a thing that tran-scendsand often makes up for the limitations ofspecific instruc-tional strategies (see Box 6-5). Although in this report we have notincorporated lessons from exceptional teaching practices with thesame comprehensiveness as other topics in the research on reading,we acknowledge their importance in conceptualizing effective read-ing instruction.

Classroom instruction is not the only method of interventionused to prevent reading difficulties. In Chapter 5, we reviewedefforts that can take place in the preschool years. In the next twochapters on prevention and intervention strategies to preventing read-ing difficulties, we review organization strategies in kindergartenand the primary grades and research on providing extended time inreading-related instruction. In the next chapter, we review institu-tional responses to the prevention of reading problems.

23E


BOX 6-5Teaching Children Versus Teaching a Curriculum

Language Arts: You come down solidly advocating that educators needto teach children rather than to teach a curriculum. And you have alsostated that the wars between whole language advocates and phonicsadvocates "are based more on educator identities than on children'sneeds." Would you talk about that a bit?

Lisa Delpit: I continue to be astounded that folks seem to put themselvesinto a political and ideological camp and indicate, "I'm going to stay in thiscamp come hell or high water." I view teaching a little differently. I don'tplace myself as a teacher in a camp. I see myself as responder to theneeds of children. Some children will need to learn explicitly certain strat-egies or conventions; some children will not need that because they'vegotten it through the discourse that they teamed in their homes.

In California I saw a black child who was in a class where the kidswere supposed to read a piece of literature and then respond to it. Thechild clearly couldn't read the selection. When asked about the situation,the teacher said, "Oh, he can't read it, but he'll get it in the discussion."Perhaps it's good that he will be able to get it in the discussion, but at thesame time nobody is spending time teaching him what he also needs tolearnhow to read for himself. So, we can lose track of the fact thatchildren may need different kinds of instruction, depending on their knowl-edge and background.

Sometimes we have the best intentions but actually end up holdingbeliefs that result in lower expectations for certain students. We are con-tent that the students are just becoming fluent in writing, so we don't pushthem to edit their pieces into final products that can be published. Wedon't do the kind of pushing necessary to get students to achieve at thelevel that they might be capable of.

SOURCE: An excerpt from "A Conversation with Lisa Delpit" by Lan-guage Arts (1991:544-545).

7Organizational Strategies for

Kindergarten and thePrimary Grades

For most children, good standard classroom instruction usingthe strategies, materials, and techniques reviewed in Chapter 6 con-stitutes an adequate measure to ensure the prevention of readingdifficulties. For other children in some circumstances, however,good instruction is possible only in the context of broader institu-tional reformby which we mean organizational change at theschool level. This kind of change may involve modifying classroomand school structure, for instance by reducing class size or restruc-turing the instructional program of an entire school. For otherchildren, necessary changes may include the hiring of bilingual teach-ers who can provide initial literacy training in the children's nativelanguage. In still other circumstances, instruction may need to beadapted to children's cultural or linguistic characteristics, or it mayneed to be designed to address the consequences for children's devel-opment of living in impoverished neighborhoods.

In this chapter, we address efforts to prevent reading difficultiesthat involve designing instructional and institutional approaches forgroups of children who share developmental or instructional needs.These efforts attempt to ensure access to good instruction for allchildren, including those who might otherwise not have such access

226

24 C

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES 227

because of socioeconomic disadvantage, inadequate organization ofinstruction in the schools they attend, limited proficiency in Englishand in standard English, and cultural differences.

TEACHING READING TO CHILDREN LIVING IN POVERTY

As noted in Chapter 4, social class differences, especially mea-sured in the aggregate, have long been recognized as creating condi-tions that lead to reading difficulties (Stubbs, 1980), although thereis considerable variability within social strata. The conditions caus-ing the reading difficulties are complex, however, and do not restsolely on home experiences (Baker et al., 1995; Delgado-Gaitan,1990; Goldenberg et al., 1992). Low income level can be accompa-nied by other factors that place children at risk, for instance, attend-ing a school that has chronic low academic achievement.

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965was the first major federal aid specifically for children from low-income neighborhoods. There were great expectations that Title Iwould not only help disadvantaged children but indeed also close thelarge achievement gap between poor children and others. However,the original Title I was actually a funding mechanism rather than aspecific program or policy for assisting students at risk; in fact,Congress mandated that all school districts should be eligible for atleast some of the Title I funds. Furthermore, because little wasknown about which compensatory practices or interventions wereeffective, these federal funds were not used to fundamentally alterthe educational opportunities provided to children in poverty(Mosher and Bailey, 1970).

The results of initial evaluations of Title I were quite discourag-ing, and national studies suggested that there was little evidence thatthe program had any impact on eligible children, although state andlocal evaluations provided some evidence of a significant positiveimpact (Wargo et al., 1972). There were charges that Title I fundswere being misspent. Threatened with the loss of funds, states re-sponded by separating further the education of students eligible forthese funds by pulling them from their regular classes and putting


them into small group settings, with little coordination between thegeneral and remedial educators.

The most rigorous evaluation of Title I in the 1970s, carried outby the System Development Corporation, followed a cohort of120,000 students for three years. The study determined that, al-though Title I recipients did better than matched non-Title I stu-dents, the children who were most disadvantaged, and therefore theparticular focus of Title I funds, were not helped much (Carter,1984). Despite persistent and pervasive problems with Title I, it wasnot until 1988 that any major legislative revision occurred that af-fected the program. When Title I (reauthorized as Chapter I in1981) was reauthorized as part of the Hawkins-Stafford Elementaryand Secondary School Improvement Act, the legislation mandatedthat the services be linked to the regular school curriculum; thatschools in high-poverty areas develop school-wide programs, ratherthan focusing on individual students; and that curriculum reformefforts stress higher-order thinking skills.

The results of a large-scale national, longitudinal study entitled"Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of EducationalGrowth and Opportunity" (Puma et al., 1997) again provided dis-couraging evidence regarding the effectiveness of Title I in address-ing the considerable gap between children in high- and low-povertyschools. However, there was an important caveat offered (Puma etal., 1997:vi): "Our inability to discern a compensatory effect ofChapter I is not necessarily an indication of program failure. Limi-tations of the Prospects study prevented us from observing directlywhether Chapter I students would have been worse off (i.e., whetherthe gap would have widened over time) in the absence of the servicesthey received; in fact, we might expect the gap to grow over time,absent a special intervention. Chapter I may have helped but [it] wastoo weak an intervention to bring the participating students up topar with their classmates."

Once again, in 1994, Title I was targeted for reform as part ofthe Improving America's School Act. The current restructured TitleI calls for disadvantaged students to learn to the same challengingstate standards as all other students through systemic reform consis-tent with Goals 2000 (McDonnell et al., 1997). The new standards-

242


based Title I programs are just now being developed and imple-mented.

The rocky history of Title I efforts highlights the challenges asso-ciated with the design, implementation, and evaluation of supple-mentary intervention efforts. From this history we learn the impor-tance of determining the extent to which interventions lead todifferent educational experiences for childrenin terms of their op-portunity to learnand whether these interventions are indeed mak-ing an educational difference in the lives of children.

TEACHING READING TO CHILDRENATTENDING SCHOOLS WITH

CHRONICALLY LOW ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Schools with chronically low academic achievement are thosewith lower rates of on-task time, less teacher preparation of newmaterial, lower rates of teacher communication of high expectations,fewer instances of positive reinforcement, more classroom interrup-tions, more discipline problems, and an unfriendly classroom ambi-ance. We review two major organizational strategies found to beeffective in schools with chronically low academic achievement: classsize and school restructuring.

Class Size

The abilities and opportunities of teachers to closely observe andfacilitate the literacy learning of diverse groups of children are cer-tainly influenced by the numbers of children they deal with. Al-though the federal government reports steady decreases in the aver-age size of elementary school classrooms, schools in poor urbanareas continue to show higher class sizes than schools in all otherareas (NCES, 1994).

The relationship between class size and achievement has been ofinterest for many years (Smith and Glass, 1980). However, severalrecent developments have renewed interest in this issue, namely,systematic, state-sponsored studies of reduced class sizes in the earlygrades (such as those conducted in Tennessee) and the use of Title I


funds to decrease the student-to-teacher ratio in high-povertyschools. A synthesis of 11 studies of class size concluded that signifi-cantly reducing class size to 21 or fewer students with one teacherhad positive effects for reading achievement at the end of first grade,although the effects were both small and short term Slavin (1989).Of the 11 studies, 7 reported positive effects on reading in firstgrade, 3 found no difference, and 1 determined that there was asmall effect favoring the larger classes. Four studies examined theeffects of reduced class size throughout the primary grades, and onlyone reported a sustained effect for reduced class size (also seeMosteller et al., 1996).

To understand these outcomes, it is helpful to turn to observa-tional studies, such as those conducted by Evertson and Randolph(1989), which determined that the differences one might anticipatefor reduced class size (increases in time spent on reading, lessonformat, the number and nature of student-teacher interactions) gen-erally did not come to pass. In summary, although both the quantityand quality of teacher-student interactions are necessarily limited bylarge class size, best instructional practices are not guaranteed bysmall class size. Class size reduction efforts must be accompanied byprofessional development and planning that supports the desiredchanges in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

School-wide Restructuring

The recognition that school-wide poor performance is generallyassociated with a host of factors has motivated more comprehensiveinterventions, which address curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, pro-fessional development, and relationships with families and the com-munity. Well-known school restructuring efforts include AcceleratedSchools (Levin, 1991) and the Coalition of Essential Schools Project(Sizer, 1983). The school restructuring effort that has been thesubject of the most research is Success For All (Slavin et al., 1992).

Success For All was designed as a prevention and early interven-tion for students in kindergarten through third grade who are at riskfor early reading failure. Every attempt is made to serve all children,including those with special needs. The key features include indi-

24 4


vidualized tutoring, smaller student-teacher ratios for reading les-sons, regroupings across grade levels to create more homogeneousreading groups, assessments and reassignments at eight week inter-vals, a reading curriculum facilitator on site, and a comprehensivereading program that progresses from specially designed materials tobasal readers and trade books. The most helpful description of Suc-cess For All is provided by its designers (Slavin et al., 1994:76):

The idea behind Success For All is to use everything known about effec-tive instruction for students at risk to direct all aspects of school andclassroom organization toward the goal of preventing academic deficitsfrom appearing in the first place, recognizing and intensively interveningwith any deficits that do appear, and providing students with a rich andfull curriculum to enable them to build on their firm foundation in basicskills. The commitment of Success For All is to do whatever it takes to seethat every child makes it through third grade at or near grade level inreading and other basic skills, and then goes beyond this in the latergrades.

In the reading component of the program, reading tutors are oneof the most prominent features. On the basis of earlier research(e.g., Slavin et al., 1989), the designers determined that one of themost effective forms of instruction is the use of tutors. Success ForAll tutors are certified teachers, many of whom are specialists inreading or special education. Tutors work individually with stu-dents who are experiencing difficulty in their reading classes for 20minutes daily, employing the same curriculum in place in the class-room but providing individually tailored, intensive teaching. Theclassroom reading periods are 90 minutes long and are generallyconducted in groups of 15 to 20, with the classroom teachers and thetutors serving as reading teachers to allow for smaller-sized groups.Teachers and tutors communicate regularly to avoid the problems ofdiscontinuity for the child.

The reading program at every grade level includes readingchildren's literature and engaging the class in a discussion to jointlyconstruct the meaning of the story, as well as enhancing listeningand speaking vocabulary and knowledge of story structure. Inkindergarten and first grade, story telling and retelling, in whichchildren retell and dramatize stories, is used to develop languageskills. The kinds of big book activities described in Chapter 6 are

4


used as well. More instruction to promote conventional readingbegins in the second semester of kindergarten, employing minibooksthat contain phonetically regular words in interesting stories that areread and reread to partners as well as to the teacher. Letters andsounds are introduced in a predetermined sequence and integratedinto words, sentences, and stories.

When students attain the second-grade reading level, they use aform of the Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition pro-gram, in tandem with the district's basal series or trade books(Stevens and Slavin, 1995). It includes more emphasis on compre-hension strategy instruction, such as summarizing and predicting,hand in hand with vocabulary building, decoding practice, and story-related writing.

The evaluation research found significant treatment effects acrossgrade levels and at follow-up. In first through third grades, averageperformance was maintained at grade level, but from fourth gradeon, students in Success For All did not reach grade level, althoughthey continued to progress significantly more rapidly than did com-parison-group children. This group difference was also maintainedduring at least two years of middle school, after leaving the SuccessFor All school (see Figure 7-1). The analysis provides evidence thatthe intervention benefits even the lowest-achieving students, as wellas more able ones.

In addition, over successive years of implementation, the positiveeffects of the program have been observed to increase, although thistrend is not entirely consistent (see Englert and Tarrant, 1995, andChapter 8). One hypothesis is that schools become more effectivewith experience. Another is that the children in the second year havehad the benefit of already having participated in a Success For Allprogram for a year when they enter first grade.

Evaluations conducted at sites other than the original ones moni-tored by the designers have not been as strong and consistent (seeSmith et al., 1996); nevertheless, close to half of the measures evalu-ated significantly favored the Success For All sites, and only threecomparisons (all within one district) favored the control school.This is remarkable given the broad array of features to be opera-tionalized and the complexities of introducing change into schools

24 0

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES

6

5.5

5-4.5

4

3.5

3-2.5

2-1.5

1

SFA

Control

ES=+.58

IGrade 1(n=60)

ES=+.39

ES=+.56

ES=+.49

ES=+.62

233

Follow-up

ES=+.54 ES = +.42

Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7(n=47) (n=38) (n=21) (n=12) (n=10) (n=5)

FIGURE 7-1 Comparison of Success For All and control schools in mean readinggrade equivalents and effect sizes, 1988-1996. Note: n = number of cohorts. Onlyincludes cohorts in Success For All or control schools since first grade. SOURCES:Adapted from Slavin et al. (1996a, b).

with high reliability (Stringfield, 1995, 1997), but it also sounds acautionary note about the transportability of even the most success-ful and well-specified programs.

TEACHING READING TOLANGUAGE-MINORITY CHILDREN

There is no doubt that it is possible to learn to read at a high levelof proficiency in a second language, just as it is possible to become aproficient speaker of a second language. Furthermore, as scholars ofancient Hebrew, Greek, and Latin demonstrate, it is possible tobecome a high-level reader in a language one does not speak at all.These clear cases, though, are generally cases of second-languageliteracy acquisition after the establishment of proficiency, both oraland written, in a first language. The major question that concerns usis whether it is possible to learn to read for the first time in a secondlanguage. Disagreements concerning second-language literacy ariseconcerning considerably more specific questions about acquisitionand ultimate attainment. Is initial literacy instruction in a second

24,


language effective? If so, is it effective for all children? Does initialliteracy instruction in a second language slow or limit ultimate lit-eracy attainment in the second language? If initial literacy instruc-tion in a second language is contraindicated, what level of first-language literacy should be considered prerequisite to initiation ofsecond-language literacy teaching?

Surprisingly, given the many millions of initially non-English-speaking children who have acquired literacy in English in the UnitedStates, and given the many millions of dollars expended on efforts toevaluate bilingual education programs, straightforward, data-basedanswers to these questions are not available. The accumulated wis-dom of research in the field of bilingualism and literacy tends toconverge on the conclusion that initial literacy instruction in a sec-ond language can be successful, that it carries with it a higher risk ofreading problems and of lower ultimate literacy attainment thaninitial literacy instruction in a first language, and that this risk maycompound the risks associated with poverty, low levels of parentaleducation, poor schooling, and other such factors.

In this section we outline sources of evidence supporting theseconclusions, conceding, however, that the definitive study has notbeen carried out. The evidence presented here relates to findingsconcerning effects of language of initial literacy instruction and ef-fects of longer-term support for first-language literacy; in many spe-cific cases, it is impossible to tell whether positive or negative conse-quences for patterns of achievement relate to initial or to ongoingsupport or lack thereof in the native language.

1. Demographic patterns. The higher risk of reading problemsassociated with lack of proficiency in English on school entry iswidely documented (NAEP, 1994). Also, rates of school failure,early dropout, and limited literacy attainment are very high in coun-tries in which second-language literacy instruction is widespread, forinstance, the African countries that use formerly colonial languagesin schooling (Postlethwaite and Ross, 1992) and in European set-tings in which immigrant children are given exclusively second-language schooling (Tosi, 1979). Of course, such patterns in the

24c


United States and elsewhere are only suggestive and do not indicatecauses for reading problems.

2. Role of social class in limiting risk. Many children learn toread adequately after initial instruction in a second language, both inthe United States and in other multilingual settings in which schooland home languages are different. A major challenge is to determinewhich children manage to thrive under these circumstances andwhich initial reading instruction in the home language is of particu-lar importance.

One clue in answering this question comes from accounts sug-gesting that English speakers in French immersion programs inCanada acquire literacy in French first with little difficulty, subse-quently transferring their literacy skills successfully to English (citedin August and Hakuta, 1997). French immersion is a magnet pro-gram in Canada, generally selected by middle-class, academicallymotivated families for their children. These same families supportliteracy acquisition in English in many ways, both prior to theirchildren's exposure to formal instruction and thereafter. It may bethat for children in families with many academic and literacy re-sources, initial instruction in literacy in a second language is unprob-lematic.

3. Long-term deficits. Even Canadian children in French im-mersion programs, however, may perform better on literacy tasksadministered in their first, stronger language (Carey and Cummins,1983) after as many as 10 years of consistent instruction in thesecond language. Better performance in the first language is equiva-lent, of course, to worse than expected performance in the second(although it is not obvious for Canadians because native Englishspeakers tested in French are never directly compared with nativeFrench speakers tested in French).

One large study of test scores from initially non-English-speak-ing children in a school district that had adopted an English-onlyeducation policy found that bilingual children caught up with mono-lingual English-speaking peers in all areas tested within a couple ofyears after arrival, on average, unless those children had entered U.S.schools in kindergarten or first grade (Collier and Thomas, 1989).In other words, children who had presumably established basic lit-

.24E,


eracy skills in a native language achieved academic parity with peersas soon as they had acquired proficiency in English, but youngerarrivals showed long-lasting negative effects on academic achieve-ment associated with initial literacy instruction in English. Similarfindings for Finnish speakers in Sweden have been reported bySkutnabb-Kangas and Toukomaa (1979). These results, again, arelimited in that they are retrospective and somewhat speculative, butat the very least they show as perhaps questionable the widespreadassumptions that earlier exposure and more exposure to the secondlanguage are advantageous.

4. Evaluations of bilingual programs. While methodologicallyrigorous evaluations of bilingual education programs are rare (seeAugust and Hakuto, 1997, Chapter 2), and most such evaluationsare too small or too flawed to be at all helpful, the most careful met-analysis of studies comparing bilingual to English-only educationalprograms for language-minority children, carried out by Willig(1985), shows better literacy outcomes in English for children whoreceived transitional bilingual education.

5. Late-exit programs. Further support for the position thathaving later and less total exposure to English literacy may in factpromote achievement in English if the time is spent in developingnative-language literacy skills comes from the findings of a large-scale comparison of educational programs for language-minoritychildren (Ramirez et al., 1991). Although they could not compareearly- and late-exit bilingual programs within school districts (theideal match), they did report that children in late-exit bilingual pro-grams had higher levels of achievement than children in early-exitbilingual or in English as a second language programs. Such apattern of achievement is consistent with a model in which first-language literacy contributes to second language literacy.

6. Transfer. Several studies have documented the transfer ofliteracy skills from a first to a second language. These studies areimportant in that they suggest a mechanism explaining the positiveeffects of time spent on first-language literacy for second-languageliteracy. One study in the Netherlands found that word recognitionand reading comprehension levels in the language in which literacyinstruction had occurred correlated with the same measures in the

25G


other language for Turkish-Dutch bilinguals (Verhoeven and Gillijns,1994). Studies that show high interlanguage correlations on literacyand literacy-related language tasks were reviewed by Cummins(1979). Cummins carried out research demonstrating transfer evenfor such orthographically and typologically distant language pairs asEnglish and Japanese and English and Vietnamese (Cummins, 1984).Researchers have consistently found stronger relationships betweenliteracy tasks than between oral-language tasks across the bilingualperson's two languages (e.g., Lanauze and Snow, 1989), again sug-gesting that time invested in developing first-language literacy worksto the advantage of second language literacy achievement.

7. Theory. As emphasized throughout this report, the successfulreader must have skills in analyzing language in order to understandhow the alphabetic code represents meaningful messages. Knowl-edge available for analysis and access to meaning are thus two cru-cial factors in successful early reading (Bialystok and Ryan, 1985).Typical English-speaking children have considerable knowledgeavailable for analysis at the time they enter schoolseveral thou-sand words in their vocabularies, some exposure to rhymes andalliterations, practice writing their own names and "reading" envi-ronmental print, and other sources of information about the natureof the analysis they will be expected to engage in. Non-Englishspeakers are confronted with the task of analyzing knowledge theyhave not yet acquired.

Furthermore, English speakers making initial attempts at readingunderstand, if they are successful, the products of their efforts. Theyread words they know and sentences they understand. They can usecontext and probabilities effectively, and they can self-correct effi-ciently. Non-English speakers have much less basis for knowingwhether their reading is correct because the crucial meaning-makingprocess is short circuited by lack of language knowledge. Giving achild initial reading instruction in a language that he or she does notyet speak thus can undermine the child's chance to see literacy as apowerful form of communication, by knocking the support of mean-ing out from underneath the process of learning.

It would be highly desirable to be able to cite a study in whichchildren had been randomly assigned to conditions of reading in-


struction that systematically varied the length of time that instruc-tion was provided in the first language, as well as how early and howintensively instruction was provided in the second language. Welack such a study, so we must draw conclusions from studies that areflawed in design and somewhat equivocal in their findings. It is clearthat initial reading instruction in the first language does no harm,and it seems likely both from research findings and from theoriesabout literacy development that initial reading instruction in thesecond language can have negative consequences for immediate andlong-term achievement. This conclusion leads us to urge initial lit-eracy instruction in a child's native language whenever possible andto suggest that literacy instruction should not be introduced in anylanguage before some reasonable level of oral proficiency in thatlanguage has been attained.

Examples of successful reading programs in Spanish for Spanishspeakers in the United States can be found in Goldenberg andGallimore (1991), Goldenberg and Sullivan (1994), and Slavin andMadden (1995). In all three cases, early elementary students intargeted schools attained higher levels of reading proficiency in Span-ish than students in comparable schools. Although the programswere different, each emphasized structured phonological instructioncombined with meaningful uses of print.

TEACHING READING TO CHILDREN SPEAKINGNONSTANDARD DIALECTS

Users of nonstandard dialects learning to read in English facechallenges analogous to those faced by speakers of other languages.In both cases, children are expected to learn to read a language(standard English) that they use in a limited way. A sizable body offindings has documented differences between mainstream and mi-nority dialects that may bear directly on a mechanism that is centralto reading developmentthe development of sound-symbol links.Learning English spelling is challenging enough for speakers of stan-dard mainstream English; these challenges are heightened by a num-ber of phonological and grammatical features of minority dialectsthat make the relation of sound to spelling even more indirect.

2J`


An important example is African American Vernacular English(AAVE). Many of the approximately 8 million African Americanstudents in U.S. schools are also speakers of AAVE. The most char-acteristic form of the vernacular is spoken by a majority, both youthand adults, in inner cities where there is a high concentration ofAfrican Americans. Modified forms of AAVE are spoken by otherswho have more extensive contact with speakers of other dialects.

For speakers of this dialect, there is a great deal of divergencebetween spoken and written forms of English (Labov, 1966; Wol-fram, 1969). AAVE is characterized by extreme reduction of finalconsonants, which affects clusters ("so" for "sold," "fin" for"find"), liquids ("so'd" for "sold," "he'p" for "help," and "fo'" for"four"), and even final stop consonants ("ba" for "bad," "spea"for "speak").

In addition, some phonological contrasts are absent for speakersof AAVE, such as -th versus -f at the ends of words. The lack ofcontrast of /i/ and /e/ before In/, widespread throughout the South, isan identifying feature of AAVE speakers in the North. Syllablestructure is also often radically different from that shown in wordspellings, or orthography, that is, in translating the units of thespoken language into letters of the alphabet or letter-like forms.When the medial In is deleted, for example, "parents" (a two-syl-lable word) might be indistinguishable from "pants," with one syl-lable only.

Addressing Dialect in Reading Instruction

In order to reduce the gap between what children speak andwhat they are expected to read, many nations use the vernacular forearly reading instruction and introduce the language of wider com-munication only in higher grades (Feitelson, 1988). Research inregions where children speak a nonstandard dialect has shown anadvantage for children who have learned to read in their home lan-guage or dialect (Bull, 1994).

As early as 1969, Stewart advocated that African American youthwho speak AAVE be provided opportunities to read text that isconsistent with their oral language. In his argument, he pointed to

4U...


the systematic structure of AAVE and the extensive difference (espe-cially when compared with other American dialects) between AAVEand the standard English reflected in texts for beginning readers. Hesuggested that providing AAVE-speaking youth the opportunity toread AAVE versions of text would be consistent with the innova-tions for second-language learners proposing that children first betaught to read in their native language and then transfer these skillsto whatever language was the goal of the literacy program. In the1960s, Baratz and Stewart prepared primary text materials and pro-vided some pilot demonstrations of their effectiveness (as cited inBaratz and Shuy, 1969). A full experimental test of these materialswas not undertaken.

One outcome of Stewart's efforts with his colleagues was theproduction of a set of several texts for older children, entitled Bridge,that were written in AAVE. Bridge developers Simpkins andSimpkins (1981) described their program thus: "The Bridge programattempts to start where the students are and take them to where theirteachers would like them to be by using the language and culture thechildren bring to school as a foundation upon which to build."

Materials are sequenced according to associative bridging; read-ing in the mainstream dialect is taught as an extension of reading inthe students' familiar dialect. AAVE serves as a springboard fromwhich to move to the presentation of standard mainstream English.Accordingly, materials are written in three dialect versions: AAVE,transition, and standard English (Simpkins and Simpkins, 1981, citedin Rickford and Rickford, 1995:113).

Simpkins and Simpkins (1981) field tested this program over aperiod of 4 months with 540 students from seventh through twelfthgrades. They reported that the experimental students showed sig-nificantly greater gains on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in readingcomprehension than did 123 comparison students who were en-gaged in remedial reading activities. Specifically, the Bridge studentsshowed because of 6.2 months of growth for 4 months of instruc-tion, compared with 1.6 months of growth for the comparison stu-dents. These reports do not indicate specific applications of dialectdifferences to the problems of developing phonemic awareness anddecoding skills. The evaluated interventions appear to have relied

254


on the overall effect of a given cultural and linguistic style as readingmaterials rather than focusing on specific linguistic differences thataffect sound-to-spelling correspondence.

Objections about the program from parents and teachers led itspublishers to discontinue promotion of Bridge. Since the early 1980s,there have been no published studies of new data on the use ofAAVE texts. Rickford and Rickford (1995) have recently made astrong case for reopening the issue of whether African Americanstudents' reading attainment would be enhanced by using AAVEmaterials. They obtained mixed results on several pilot studies,however, with some outcomes being actually negative for the AAVEreaders.

Teacher Knowledge Across Reading Programs

Recent research has suggested that, across reading programs,teachers should attend to the following principles when providinginstruction with dialect speakers, including children who use AAVE,Latino-influenced English, and other nonstandard dialects: (a) dis-tinguish between mistakes in reading and mistakes in pronunciation,(b) give more attention to the ends of words (where much dialectvariation is most apparent) in initial reading instruction, (c) presentwords to students in phonological contexts that preserve underlyingforms, (d) avoid contractions, and (e) teach grammar explicitly(Labov, 1995). Clearly there is a rich research agenda represented inthe thoughtful application of these principles in literacy instruction;to date, this work has not been undertaken, although research byCraig and her colleagues is providing a rich base from which toevaluate children's use of AAVE (Craig and Washington, 1995).

These principles address only the linguistic aspects of AAVE, asLabov (1995) points out. There are many opposing cultural patternssurrounding the use of language in the classroom, patterns for deal-ing with authority, and cultural definitions of dignity and respectthat create hidden obstacles for the majority of African Americanchildren in their dealings with the school system. The linguisticprinciples must be embedded in a larger perspective that recognizesthese children as intelligent, well-adjusted products of their own

4.1


culture, still full of aspiration and promise. It is only in such aperspective that the standard language can be presented as an avenuetoward educational advancement and the improvement of economicopportunity.

TEACHING READING TO CHILDREN WITHCULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Although there is widespread agreement that minority groupsdiffer from each other and from mainstream cultures in several re-spects, less certain is how and whether cultural differences contrib-ute to reading achievement. A persistent and troubling aspect ofreading difficulties is the differential in reading success between main-stream and minority childrenAfrican American, Hispanic, NativeAmerican, and some Asian and Pacific Islander groups. For ex-ample, the reading achievement gap between African American andwhite students increases as the students progress through school(Entwisle and Alexander, 1988; Phillips et al., in press). In Chapter6 and earlier sections of this one, we have alluded to the role ofcultural differences but have not addressed the topic directly.

Considerable work has suggested that minority groups have spe-cific cultural perspectives on literacy and on academic learning moregenerally that differ from those of mainstream groups (e.g., Jacoband Jordan, 1987; Tharp, 1989). Several researchers have notedthat instruction in reading skills and other informal opportunitiesfor learning about literacy are found in the homes of African Ameri-can and Hispanic families, suggesting at least one area of potentialcommonality between home and school. Others have found thatinstruction in aspects of literacy, such as letter names, simple words,and phonics, was often observed in the homes of minority families(Baker et al., 1995) . Other researchers suggest that minority groupsconsider direct teaching of this type to be both culturally appropriateand effective (Delpit, 1986, 1988; Goldenberg, 1995).

But even if the research was able to isolate specific cultural con-figurations that interfere with reading, there is the question ofwhether we have the ability to adjust cultural factors in the class-room. Cultural differences are entrenched in history and social insti-

25E


tutions and are not easily amenable to educators' manipulations.One researcher, for example, argues that high rates of low perfor-mance of African American students persist even when they areequal to others on all objective measures of skill and preparation(Steele, 1992). He isolates a complex of psychological and culturalfactors, which he refers to as "misidentification with school," thatare the product of a long history of racial vulnerability and responseto racism. The work of John Ogbu, which addresses the institution-alized racism of school systems and other institutions, also impliesthe need for massive social change if the minority differential is to beerased (Ogbu, 1982).

Cultural Accommodation

Demonstrations of the benefits of culturally accommodated in-struction, whereby educators make certain accommodations to fea-tures of students' cultural backgrounds, have empirically documenteddirect connections between cultural accommodation and studentparticipation (Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1989). When classroomsare compatible with students' home culturesin such areas as moti-vation strategies (individualistic versus group or family based) andspeaking or participation styles (direct versus indirect, turn-takingrules)the students are more likely to participate more and in waysthat appear to be conducive to effective learning.

A limitation of the cultural accommodation research base is thatit has left largely untested the proposition that culturally accommo-dated instruction has beneficial effects on measured student achieve-ment. For example, Au and Mason (1981), in one of the mostwidely cited studies in this area, found that when a teacher engagedNative Hawaiian children in reading lessons congruent with socio-linguistic patterns from the children's native culture ("talk-story," aNative Hawaiian discourse style), students participated more in aca-demically productive interactions than when taught by a teacherwho was unaware of these interaction styles.

This study is frequently cited as showing a direct connectionbetween culturally accommodated instruction and student achieve-ment, but in reality Au and Mason included no measures of student

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learning, only indices of children's participation and engagementduring actual lessons. That talk-story-like reading instruction pro-duced higher rates of engagement in academic discourse is very im-portant, but participationalthough a desirable key to learningisnot the same as achievement, and the two should not be treated assynonymous (see Karweit, 1989).

It is often suggested that early school difficulties are reduced byculturally adapting instruction to children on the basis of their homecultures. For instance, one study concluded that "compatibilitiesbetween school and culture have felicitous effects on student achieve-ment and school satisfaction" (Tharp, 1989:349-350) and that "thereis evidence that when cultural differences in social organization,sociolinguistics, cognition, and motivation are reflected in compat-ible classroom practices, such compatibility makes for classroomsthat are associated with greater child participation and enjoymentand better school achievement" (p. 355). Other scholars havereached similar conclusions (Au, 1995; California State Departmentof Education, 1986; Cazden, 1986; Trueba, 1988).

Kamehameha Early Education Project

The Kamehameha Early Education Project (KEEP) is often citedas support for this notion (Tharp, 1982; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988).KEEP is a 20-year research and development effort that succeeded insubstantially improving the early reading achievement of NativeHawaiian children. Its researchers and teachers developed instruc-tion guides and curricula on reading that significantly improvedearly reading achievement among Native Hawaiian children, at theoriginal laboratory site on Oahu and in other sites around the state.

It is uncertain, however, what role culturally accommodated in-struction played in the results (Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1989).The KEEP reading program included many components, many ofwhich seemed to have little to do with any particular cultural group,instead illustrating more general principles of effective teaching andclassroom organization. Although it is certainly plausible that cul-turally based factors and more general or universal factors combinedto create the effectiveness of the program for Native Hawaiian chil-

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dren, it is impossible to know exactly which dimensions of the pro-gram were responsible for the positive effects on student achieve-ment. In the absence of more finely detailed comparisons and datasets on the many dimensions of the program, it is difficult to rule outcompeting explanations for the program's effects.

The cultural compatibility hypothesis may be an important av-enue for helping to improve the early reading achievement of largenumbers of children currently not well served by early reading pro-grams. However, evidence for its robust effects on reading achieve-ment or any other dimension of learning is still missing. Tharp isundoubtedly correct when he argues that "experimental work inactual classrooms is of the highest priority. . . . We need moresystematic and evaluated classroom variation. Cultural compatibil-ity must be put to practical use in order to test this simple, common-sensical, and humane proposition" (1989:357, emphasis in the origi-nal).

CONCLUSIONS

The discussion in this chapter leads to several important conclu-sions. First, there are circumstances that place groups of youngchildren at risk for reading difficulties. A number of efforts havebeen made to provide reading instruction for these groups of chil-dren regardless of their individual status on child-based predictors ofreading achievement (see Chapter 4). In addition, however, particu-lar children may also need extra instruction based on child-basedpredictors of reading achievementwhich is the subject of Chapter8.

Second, to be effective, interventions must take account of exist-ing external factors or characteristics. Consideration should be givento improving existing instructional practices before deciding to imple-ment any intervention.

Third, the process of determining appropriate interventions musttake into account the characteristics of students who are at risk forfailure. For example, if an entire school is at risk, it might be wiserto begin an intervention that includes school-wide restructuring thanto devote resources to any new tutoring technique. Research has


shown the effectiveness of school-wide efforts that integrate restruc-turing focused on organizational issues and coherent classroom read-ing instruction. To date, such school-wide efforts, when they haveincluded solid and coherent regular classroom reading instruction,have generally proven more effective than disconnected strategies orrestructuring focused on organizational issues that have not includedclassroom-level and curricula changes.

Fourth, hurrying young non-English-speaking children into read-ing in English without ensuring adequate preparation is counterpro-ductive. The abilities to hear and reflect on the sublexical structureof spoken English words, as required for learning how the alphabeticprinciple works, depends on oral familiarity with the words beingread. Similarly, learning to read for meaning depends on under-standing the language and referents of the text to be read. To theextent possible, non-English-speaking children should have opportu-nities to develop literacy skills in their home language as well as inEnglish.

Fifth, a major challenge to society is the persistent disparity inreading outcomes between African American and European Ameri-can youth. Although it has long been suggested that the dialectfeatures of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) create anadditional challenge to acquiring mainstream literacy for its speak-ers, few efforts that directly test this hypothesis have been under-taken.

Finally, the positive effects of cultural accommodation are im-portant, for example, Au and Mason's (1981) finding that in "talk-story" instruction, students participated in academically productiveinteractions, but the research is not conclusive.

2fC

8

Helping Children with ReadingDifficulties in Grades 1 to 3

As indicated in Chapters 6 and 7, many children learn to readwith good instruction, but some do not. And many children haveproblems learning to read because of poor instruction. In all cases,the question is what kinds of additional instruction (usually called"interventions" because they are not part of the regular school read-ing instruction) are likely to help.

The purpose of providing extra instructional time is to help chil-dren achieve levels of literacy that will enable them to be successfulthrough their school careers and beyond. It is not simply to boostearly literacy achievement. Given the focus of this volume, we re-strict our discussion to the primary grades; however, it is likely thatchildren who have had interventions in the primary grades will needadditional supplementary experiences in the upper grades as well.We know that the literacy demands are of a different nature forolder children; as children proceed through the grades, they are ex-pected to learn from informational text with which they may havehad few experiences in the primary grades (see Fisher and Hiebert,1990); they are expected to use text independently; and they areexpected to use text for the purpose of thinking and reasoning.

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Long-term follow-up studies reveal that even very powerful earlyinterventions often require "booster" sessions.

We begin by discussing some interventions that are specific toreading, targeting the training of phonological skills. We then pro-ceed to discuss individual tutoring and supplementary small-groupefforts provided by professionals with specialties in reading thathave been designed to provide comprehensive supplementary lit-eracy instruction. We continue with information on computer sup-port for reading instruction, retention in grade, and special educa-tion for children with learning disabilities. Although the latter twoare not specific to reading, they have often been introduced in re-sponse to reading failure. The chapter ends with a brief mention ofsome controversial therapies for reading problems.

TRAINING IN PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

Phonological awareness, the appreciation of speech sounds with-out regard for their meaning, is critical to discovering the alphabeticprinciple (the idea that letters generally represent the small speechsegments called phonemes). The theoretical importance and strongempirical relationship of phonological awareness to success in learn-ing to read was discussed in Chapters 2 and 4, and the demonstratedbenefits of phonological awareness training for children who havenot yet begun formal reading instruction were reviewed in Chapters5 and 6. Here we examine evidence of the effectiveness of suchtraining for two groups of children: beginning students at risk forreading difficulties and schoolchildren with existing reading difficul-ties (whose achievement is unacceptably low after two or more yearsof instruction).

Phonological Awareness Training for Kindergartners at Risk

Many children at risk for reading difficulties enter school withlittle or no phonological awareness. Does explicit instruction andpractice in attending to and manipulating the sounds within spokenwords facilitate these children's reading acquisition? Evidence isaccruing that indeed such training can be of particular benefit to

26

HELPING CHILDREN WITH READING DIFFICULTIES 249

youngsters at risk due to socioeconomic disadvantage and/or weakinitial preparedness in reading-related skills.

As was the case in the kindergarten research reviewed in Chapter6, some training and intervention programs for at-risk youngstershave emphasized phonological awareness exclusively (Bentin andLeshem, 1993; Hurford et al., 1994), whereas others have combinedphonological awareness activities with instruction in letter identifi-cation and letter-sound correspondences (e.g., Ball and Blachman,1991; Felton, 1993; Smith et al., 1993; Torgesen et al., 1992, 1997).It is therefore important to point out that even those with the morenarrowly focused programs have observed gains in reading skills(word recognition), as well as in phonological awareness itself, rela-tive to control groups. This suggests that the effectiveness of themore broadly focused studies does not rest solely on the inclusion ofearly reading instruction, but also benefits from lessons that drawthe child's attention to the sounds within spoken words.

How effectively has phonological awareness training (alone) ben-efited word identification? In a sample of 431 children who had notyet received formal reading instruction, 99 had been designated as atrisk on the basis of a screening battery (Hurford et al., 1994). Halfof the at-risk group received individual tutoring in phonologicalawareness for a total of about 10 to 15 hours over a 20-week period,during which time regular classroom reading instruction also com-menced for all participants. Prior to training, there was a substantialdifference (13 to 14 points) between mean standard scores of thenot-at-risk children and each at-risk group on the word identifica-tion measure. After the training period, this large gap remained forthe untrained at-risk group, but the trained group's post-test meanwas 7 points below that of the controls who were not at risk.

Another study compared the effects of phonological awarenesstraining with an alternative kind of language training (in vocabularyand sentence skills) as well as with a no-training condition for chil-dren at risk on the basis of their initial skill levels (Bentin and Leshem,1993). Compared with the performance of not-at-risk classmates,the at-risk groups who received no training or alternative languagetraining scored about 40 points lower on two post-tests. In contrast,those who had received training in phonological segmentation scored

4-)


30 to 34 points higher, on average, than the other at-risk groups,and within 10 or fewer points of the not-at-risk group's mean.

In the studies in which training has also included instruction inletters and letter-sound relationships, similar patterns of results havegenerally been found (e.g., Ball and Blachman, 1991; Felton, 1993;Smith et al., 1993; Torgesen et al., 1992, 1997). Modification of thestandard Reading Recovery program (described in a later section) soas to include an additional phonologically oriented component hasalso been shown to be effective; when researchers compared a groupof at-risk first graders who participated in the standard programwith a matched group in the modified Reading Recovery training,the latter group reached criterion for successful completion signifi-cantly faster (Iverson and Tunmer, 1993).

Torgesen and his colleagues (1992, 1997) have also explored thequestion as to what degree of explicitness in such instruction is mosteffective for kindergartners with weak letter knowledge and phono-logical awareness skills when they begin school. At-risk kindergart-ners were assigned to one of four conditions: a highly explicit andintensive phonologically oriented instruction; a less explicit phono-logically oriented instruction delivered in the context of meaningfulexperiences with reading and writing text; regular classroom sup-port; or no treatment. The group receiving explicit phonologicallyoriented instruction scored highest on word identification, but onlythe 12-point difference with the no-treatment group was statisticallysignificant. A similar pattern of means favoring the explicit phono-logically oriented instruction group was obtained for reading com-prehension, but these smaller group differences were not significant.These data are consistent with those of Foorman et al. (1998, dis-cussed in Chapter 6), suggesting that greater intensity and explicit-ness of early phonological training may reap greater gains in readingacquisition for at-risk youngsters.

One reason that statistical significance has sometimes been diffi-cult to achieve in these training and intervention studies (with theirrelatively small sample sizes) has been the considerable variabilityamong children within groups in their responses to treatment. It isclear that a majority of at-risk children who receive training in pho-nological awareness show strong gains in awareness itself, but a


minorityperhaps a quarter (Torgesen et al., 1997)gain little orno insight into the structure of spoken words, much less into read-ing, by the end of training. Typically, these children are among thevery weakest at the outset in their phonological awareness (andother linguistic) abilities. For these children to reap the benefits oftraining, it is likely that many more hours of or a different type ofspecial instruction are needed than have typically been provided instudies to date.

The fact that the effects of phonological awareness training havenot been found to include gains in reading comprehension in theearly grades is not particularly surprising. As discussed previously,reading comprehension depends not just on mastery of word recog-nition skills but also on a host of other factors, including vocabulary,background knowledge, memory skills, and so forth. Children as-signed to the at-risk groups have typically been weaker than class-mates in their overall cognitive and linguistic preparedness, and train-ing in phonological awareness is not designed to strengthen otherskills that contribute to comprehension. In short, the goal of phono-logical training is limited to facilitating the acquisition of word-decoding abilities, which are necessary but not sufficient for thedevelopment of skilled comprehension.

Taken together, these studies indicate that training in phonologi-cal awareness, particularly in association with instruction in lettersand letter-sound relationships, makes a contribution to assisting at-risk children in learning to read. The effects of training, althoughquite consistent, are only moderate in strength, and have so far notbeen shown to extend to comprehension. Typically, a majority of thetrained children narrow the gap between themselves and initiallymore advanced students in phonological awareness and word read-ing skills, but few are brought completely up to speed through train-ing, and a few fail to show any gains at all. Hence, it is unrealistic tothink of phonological awareness training as a one-shot inoculationagainst reading difficulties for children at risk. Rather, its greaterdemonstrated value is as the first of many aggressive steps that canbe taken in an ongoing effort to intensify all facets of reading in-struction for schoolchildren who need it.

ri 6


Training for Children with Reading Disabilities

Because most children who are identified as being poor readersare also weaker than their classmates in phonological awarenessskills, providing training in awareness has been thought to be helpfulfor ameliorating these children's reading difficulties. To date, sev-eral studies have examined the efficacy of this approach to remedia-tion, with somewhat mixed results.

One of the earliest studies of phonological awareness training fordisabled readers focused on phoneme analysis, blending, and phono-logical decoding of text for students ages 7 to 12 with serious read-ing difficulties (Williams, 1980). Compared with similarly low-achieving children who did not receive training, the trained groupearned significantly higher scores on several measures of phonemeawareness, reading of nonsense words, and reading of regular three-letter words that had not been used in the training materials.

A computer-based training program provided supplementalsmall-group phonological instruction for children in grades 2 to 5who were in the bottom 10 percent in word recognition skills (Wiseand Olson, 1995; Olson et al., 1997). One group was first trained inphoneme awareness and phonological training and then progressedto reading stories on the computer. The comparison group's train-ing focused on comprehension strategies, beginning with small-groupinstruction and then reading stories on the computer. In all, thecomparison group spent more than twice as much time reading sto-ries as the other group.

In contrast to untrained control groups in previous research thathave consistently shown no improvement, both groups made gainsin word recognition over the training period. As would be expected,the first group improved significantly more than the comparisongroup in phoneme awareness and phonological decoding of pseudowords, and these differences were maintained for a year beyondtraining. The comparison group, which spent much more time actu-ally reading on the computer, scored higher on speeded word recog-nition. These findings suggested that the phonologically trainedgroup's better decoding skills worked to their advantage when theyhad unlimited time to apply them, but that they were not yet suffi-

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ciently automatized in decoding to do well under time-limited condi-tions. Although it was hypothesized that with further reading expe-rience the phonologically trained group's word recognition skillswould become more automatized, there was no evidence for this(Olson et al., 1997).

Another study also demonstrated that word recognition skills ofseverely disabled readers can be substantially improved through in-tensive supplementary training (Lovett et al., 1994). Training wasgiven to each of three groups in explicit instruction in phonemeawareness and letter-sound mappings, training in using commonorthographic patterns and analogies to identify unfamiliar words.and study skills training (the control condition). The phonologicalprogram produced greater improvement in phoneme awareness andphonological decoding, but the two trained groups showed similargains in word recognition compared with the controls. Recent analy-ses on an expanded sample indicate that the two training conditionsare about equally effective for older (grades 5 and 6) and younger(grades 2 and 3) children with reading disabilities (Lovett andSteinbach, 1997).

A final study compared immediate and long-term outcomes forgroups of children with severe reading disabilities who had receivedone of four types of training: phonological awareness training alone;reading instruction alone, based on the Reading Recovery approach,but with no coverage at all of letter-sound relationships; training inboth phonological and reading skills in combination; and no treat-ment controls (Hatcher et al., 1994). Performance of the group thatreceived the combined training consistently exceeded that of thecontrol group on both immediate and delayed post-tests, but scoresof the other trained groups did not differ significantly from those ofthe controls. This pattern of results was seen for word recognition,nonword reading, text reading accuracy, and reading comprehen-sion. Immediately after training, the combined training group wassix months ahead of the control group, on average, in both accuracyand comprehension of text reading; nine months after the cessationof training they remained four months ahead in accuracy and eightmonths ahead in comprehension. Despite these considerable gains

267'.


relative to the progress of other severely disabled readers, their read-ing levels remained one to two years below age norms.

These studies indicate, first, that intensive training, even overrelatively short periods of time, can substantially improve the word-reading skills of children with serious reading disabilities and thatthese positive outcomes are maintained over months or years afterthe cessation of training. Whether a continuation of such trainingover longer periods would lead to a fuller remediation of thesechildren's difficulties remains unknown, however. In particular,fluency and automaticity of word recognition, which may be re-quired for skilled reading comprehension, may require much moreor different types of training and extensive practice.

Second, it is clear that phonologically oriented training programsare not the only type of intervention that can facilitate word recogni-tion, although this approach produces the strongest gain in phone-mic awareness and phonological decoding when combined withtraining in other reading skills. Other, more orthographically ori-ented approaches have been of equivalent benefit for improving wordreading in this population, many of whom have already acquiredsome decoding skills (although these may be minimal) before train-ing. Finally, although most children with reading disabilities arecharacteristically deficient in phonological abilities ( both oral andwritten), they may also have, in part due to limited print exposure,deficits in oral vocabulary, language comprehension, and back-ground knowledge (Stanovich and West, 1989). Dealing with theseproblems is clearly beyond the scope and aims of the training pro-grams we have reviewed in this section.

LITERACY TUTORING

In this section, we describe supplementary interventions that takethe form of tutoring. They were selected for review because theyhave received more sustained research attention than other tutoringprograms. Like the training studies in phonological awareness re-viewed above, they approach the provision of extra time in readinginstruction by tutoring children individually.

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Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery, which is singled out for a relatively extensivereview, has garnered significant attention in the United States. Itrequires extensive training of teachers, as well as intensive one-on-one instruction with children, rendering it quite costly. The programwas designed by Marie Clay for the purpose of intervening withyoung children in New Zealand identified as having reading prob-lems. For complete descriptions of the instructional program, thereader is referred to Clay (1985) and Pinnell et al. (1988).

The program has a particular framework for providing instruc-tion to the tutees. For the initial 10 days of a child's participation inReading Recovery, the teacher gathers information about the child'scurrent literacy strategies and knowledge. Following this period,referred to as "roaming the known," each lesson includes (a) engag-ing the child in rereadings of previously read books; (b) independentreading of the book introduced during the previous lesson (duringwhich the teacher takes a running record to assess fluency); (c) letteridentification exercises, if necessary; (d) writing and reading his orher own sentences, during which the child's attention is called tohearing the sounds in words; (e) reassembling the child's sentencewhich is not cut up into individual words; (f) introduction to a newbook; and (g) supported reading of the new book. These activitiesoccur in a 30-minute block of time on a daily basis. One feature ofReading Recovery is time on reading of familiar bookssheer on-task, engaged learning time for students.

Teacher support provided during each of these activities is de-signed to enhance what are referred to as children's self-extendingsystems; that is, children are encouraged to use multiple sources ofinformation while reading and writing and to engage in literacyactivity using a problem-solving approach, monitoring for the effec-tiveness with which they are making sense of the text. The shortbooks used by the children have been sequenced on the basis ofteacher judgment of difficulty.

Once the child has achieved the level of functioning that matches(within a .5 standard deviation) the competence demonstrated by a

26


randomly selected group of first graders drawn from the child'sschool on the same tasks, the child is discontinued from the pro-gram. Typically, this translates into 60 30-minute sessions over a12- to 16-week period. Typically, teachers conduct Reading Recov-ery lessons with four children a day and spend the remainder of theirday as first-grade teachers. During the course of a school year,about 8 to 11 children per Reading Recovery teacher generally com-plete the program successfully and another 27 percent of childrenare dismissed from the program without having successfully reachedcriterion performance.

By most professional development standards, the preparation ofReading Recovery teachers is quite extensive. Following 30 hours oftraining before the beginning of the school year, Reading Recoveryteachers participate in weekly sessions in which the central activity isthe observation and discussion of two lessons that are conducted byReading Recovery teachers (working behind one-way viewing win-dows) with one of their students. The observations are guided by ateacher-leader, who focuses the group's attention on the activity ofboth the teacher and the child.

There are now a number of publications asking the question,"Does Reading Recovery work?" These include publications by theimplementers of Reading Recovery in the United States, includingDe Ford et al. (1987), Pinnell et al. (1994), and Pinnel et al. (1995).In addition, a number of thoughtful syntheses and reviews have beenreported by others, including Center et al. (1995), who also reportan empirical study of their own using Reading Recovery, Hiebert(1994a), Rasinski (1995), and Shanahan and Barr (1995). In fact, itappears that the data available through these reviews exceed thedata available through firsthand published investigations of ReadingRecovery; that is, the reviewers have included in their synthesestechnical reports and unpublished documents that have not beendisseminated by the Reading Recovery organization.

Clay's own research regarding Reading Recovery in NewZealand (Clay, 1985) has been criticized, in particular by Nicholson(1989) and Robinson (1989). These authors point out that, al-though Clay provides clear evidence that children improve on mea-sures that she has designed, there is no evaluation for transfer to

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other reading measures. Perhaps more troubling is their finding thatthe results reported by Reading Recovery are only for children whohave successfully been discontinued from the program, excludingabout 30 percent of the participants. Because children are not ran-domly assigned to Reading Recovery or an appropriate controlgroup, the question is raised whether the growth demonstrated inReading Recovery might not be explained simply in terms of normaldevelopment. Finally, maintenance measures comparing the perfor-mance of students successfully graduated from Reading Recoverywith other low-progress students who did not receive Reading Re-covery tutoring indicate that 12 months after the intervention thereare very small differences between the reading achievement of Read-ing Recovery children and the other low-progress children (Glynn etal., 1992). This finding regarding the failure of the low-progresschildren to respond to Reading Recovery in the long run was repli-cated in a reanalysis of Pinnell et al.'s (1988) data on U.S. partici-pants in Reading Recovery, once again indicating that 30 percent ofthe original sample of low-progress children who were enrolled inReading Recovery failed to benefit from the program (Center et al.,1995). Similar analyses and conclusions have been presented byHiebert (1994a) and Shanahan and Barr (1995).

In a study of Reading Recovery conducted by Pinnell et al.(1994), including random assignment of participants to one of fivegroupsReading Recovery, three other early intervention programs(differing from one another in group size, amount of teacher train-ing, and whether or not they adhered to Reading Recovery instruc-tional plans), and a control groupthe results indicated that follow-ing 70 days of program intervention the students in the ReadingRecovery clearly outperformed the students in the other three inter-vention programs on an array of measures of reading achievement.The study being described here contained high amounts of familiarbook reading time for the reading recovery group and for one addi-tional intervention group compared to much less time for the othergroups. The group that equaled Reading Recovery method in timespent reading familiar books equaled Reading Recovery in outcomedata. However, after three months, post-tests using standardizedmeasures did not reveal any statistical differences among the treat-

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ment groups, although the Reading Recovery group continued tomaintain its gains-12 months lateron those measures that arespecific to Reading Recovery (Clay's concepts of print and dictationtasks).

In their own research investigating Reading Recovery, Center etal. (1995) included an analysis of the individual cases of three groupsof students participating in Reading Recovery and reported an im-portant finding. They divided their Reading Recovery instructionalgroups into children who were totally "recovered" versus those whowere unsuccessful and examined the profiles of these children interms of their pretest measures. They reported that the recoveredgroup was markedly superior to the unrecovered group in terms oftheir pretest metalinguistic knowledge, as determined by assessmentof phonemic awareness, word attack, and cloze comprehension (thatis, a method of systematically deleting words from a prose selectionand then evaluating the success a reader has in accurately supplyingthe words deletedMcKenna, 1980). Center et al. conclude thatchildren with poor metalinguistic knowledge are less likely to besuccessful in Reading Recovery. This hypothesis received supportfrom the instructional research of Iverson and Tunmer (1993), whoconducted a study including a condition in which they modifiedReading Recovery to include explicit code instruction involvingphonograms (common elements in word families, such as the lettersequence, "at" in "bat, cat, sat" ). Children who were assigned tothe modified condition achieved criterion performance more quicklythan children in the standard condition.

Despite the controversies regarding the efficacy of Reading Re-covery, a number of intervention programs owe their design featuresto it, and it offers two important lessons. First, the program demon-strates that, in order to approach reading instruction with a deepand principled understanding of the reading process and its implica-tions for instruction, teachers need opportunities for sustained pro-fessional development. Second, it is nothing short of foolhardy tomake enormous investments in remedial instruction and then returnchildren to classroom instruction that will not serve to maintain thegains they made in the remedial program.

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Book Buddies

Book Buddies is a supplementary intervention in which selectedchildren received one-on-one tutorials twice a week in addition toclassroom reading instruction, using highly qualified communityvolunteers as tutors (Invernizzi et al., 1997). These tutors receivedcontinuous on-site training and supervision in the delivery of a four-step lesson designed by reading specialists. The four-part plan con-sists of repeated reading of familiar text to enhance reading fluency,word study (phonics), writing for sounds, and reading a new book.The word study portion of Book Buddies lessons is derived princi-pally from research on developmental spelling; hence instructioninitially focuses on beginning consonants, proceeds to beginning andending consonants, and finally goes to full phoneme representationof consonant-vowel-consonant words, at which point the child hasstable speech-to-print concepts and the beginnings of a sight vocabu-lary.

Although not all Book Buddy children start at the same point,the basic program proceeds through alliteration in whole words toonset-rime segments to individual phonemes. Children are explicitlytaught basic letter-sound correspondences and how to segment andmanipulate beginning consonants in the onset position of simplewords. As they achieve a stable concept of words and begin toacquire a sight word vocabulary, they are encouraged to segmentand manipulate the rime unit. Finally, when the corpus of knownwords is larger and the child begins to read, medial short vowelsounds are examined. The use of known words, gathered fromcontext and then analyzed in isolation (for instance, with the use ofword bank cards), provides an opportunity to transfer phonologicalawareness training and grapheme-phoneme practice from text toautomatic reading of sight words.

The third component is writing for sounds. Children are al-lowed to write in invented spelling, but they are held accountable forthose phonics features already taught. The rationale for this activityis that the act of segmenting speech and matching letters to sounds isa rigorous exercise in phonemic awareness. Furthermore, there is

r.


substantial research demonstrating that invented spelling can en-hance children's memory for words, at least in the beginning stages(Ehri and Wilce, 1987).

The fourth component of each lesson is the introduction of anew book, which includes focusing the child's attention on the se-quence of events and assessing the child's related background knowl-edge. Finally, reading comprehension is fostered throughout thereading of the new book through predictions, discussions, and op-portunities to write about the new story.

In summary, this supplementary intervention has four drivingprinciples: children learn to read by reading in meaningful contexts;reading instruction should be differentiated based on the diagnosisof learner need; phonics instruction should be systematic and pacedaccording to a child's developing hypotheses about how words work;and reading, writing, and spelling develop in synchrony as childreninteract with others who assist their learning and development.

Evaluations of Book Buddies included three cohorts of 358 firstand second graders. The first graders were in the bottom quartile ofeach school's Title I referral list. There were 15 tutors, each ofwhom was supervised by a university faculty member who madeassessments and wrote lesson plans. The cost was estimated to beone-sixth that of Reading Recovery. The effect size was 1.29 forword recognition, which is considerably higher than effect sizes re-ported for other tutorial programs and is indeed comparable to thatfound with professionally trained teachers. However, it is importantto note that the tutors were carefully prepared, were supervised on adaily basis, and were provided guidance, feedback, and support.

Reading One-One

Reading One-One uses trained and managed paraprofessionals(college students, community residents, teacher aides) to deliver threeto five one-on-one tutoring sessions to low-performing readers on aweekly basis throughout the school year (Farkas and Vicknair, 1996).The program aims to serve the lowest-performing readers in elemen-tary school grades 1 to 6, including children with limited Englishproficiency and children living in poverty. Teachers recommend

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students who "need help the most" or "could most profit fromhelp."

Prospective tutors are tested on their English-language skills andinterviewed. If they pass this stage, they are trained and tested againon the tutor manual used in the program. Each school has an on-sitecoordinator. Expert staff sit with each tutor during actual tutoringsessions and fill out an appraisal form, which is then used to providefeedback to the tutor. This continues until the tutor has met theprogram's standard, at which point they are certified.

The curriculum combines explicit instruction on decoding skillswith the use of small books that are ranked by difficulty level (seedescriptions of these types of books in Chapter 6). They includefiction and nonfiction and range in level from emergent literacythrough fluency. After assessment, each child is placed into one ofthree curricula: alphabet, word-family, or reading-ready. The firstof these is for children who are still learning their letters and sounds,the second is for children still learning the most basic decoding skills,and the third is for children who are able to read at least the easiest-level books on their own. Each tutoring session allows for about 30minutes of instruction.

For all three curricula, the session involves both book readingand explicit instruction on skills related to reading. This is organizedas follows:

for alphabet studentsreview of previous letters/sounds, newletter/sound instruction, reading (reading to the student and/or as-sisted reading), assisted creative writing;

for word-family studentsreview of previous word families,new word family instruction, reading (reading to the student and/orassisted reading), and creative writing; and

for reading-ready studentsrereading, new reading, high-frequency words practice, and creative writing.

In general, children are assessed every fifth session. For reading-ready children, a running record is taken every session. The childalso creates and maintains letter and/or word banks, a copy of whichgoes home with them.


An evaluation of the Reading One-One program examined theamount of improvement in relation to the number of sessions oftutoring received, which varied unsystematically as a result of vary-ing logistical circumstances (Farkas and Vicknair, 1996). Anotherevaluation showed that 70 Reading One-One sessions (taking aboutfour to six months) typically raised a child's grade-equivalent scoreby about half a year (Farkas and Vicknair, 1996).

COMPREHENSIVE LITERACY-ORIENTED EFFORTSWITH SMALL GROUPS OF CHILDREN

Early Intervention in Reading

Early Intervention in Reading is an intervention that took placein regular first-grade classrooms and was directed at improving thereading achievement of the lowest-performing five to seven readersin each class (Taylor et al., 1994). This research was conducted overa four-year period in diverse school settings (rural to inner city).Selection for the intervention was made by identifying the childrenwith the lowest scores on tasks that require them to produce indi-vidual sounds in words and to blend sounds together to form words.The lessons were planned in three-day cycles and began with thereading of a picture book to the whole first-grade class. The teacherengaged the class in a retelling of the story, which was printed onlarge chart paper so that children could read the retelling togetherover the three days. Also included in the instructional cycle was awriting activity in which the teacher selected three short phoneticallyregular words, which the children were asked to write. Also, thechildren engaged in assisted sentence writing about the story. A finalcomponent of each instructional cycle was individual reading byeach child, using either the retelling or an appropriate book.Throughout the course of the school year, longer trade books wereintroduced. Although the majority of children participating in thisearly intervention program were indeed reading by the end of firstgrade, only one-third to one-half of them were reading at grade level.

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Restructured Chapter I

In Chapter 7 we discussed congressional efforts to help disad-vantaged children through Title I of the Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act of 1965, which was reauthorized as Chapter I. Herewe have selected an intervention to restructure Chapter I services toillustrate an alternative model for using these resources (Hiebert etal., 1992). The restructuring began by reducing the numbers ofstudents the teacher instructed at any one time from eight to three.This was made possible through the use of teacher aides who werefunded by Chapter I. The second step was to work closely with theChapter I teachers in the design of curriculum and instruction thatwould enable first graders to achieve grade-appropriate readingskills. Toward this end, there were three activities around whicheach lesson was organized: reading, writing, and word study (phone-mic awareness).

To ensure that the children were engaged in sufficient reading oftext, repeated reading of predictable text was selected as the primaryoral reading activity, during which children were taught to track theprint as they read aloud. Selected books were also brought home,and parents were asked to verify that their children had read athome. The reading of 10 books at home resulted in the award of atrade book. Writing activity included maintaining a personal jour-nal (during which children received guidance in the use of phoneti-cally plausible invented spellings) and constructing sentences aroundword patterns to which the children had been exposed in the readingactivity. Finally, the word study (phonemic awareness) portion ofeach lesson consisted of two activities: one, designed to heightenawareness of phonemic identity, engaged the child in selecting rhym-ing words from among a list read aloud, and the other, designed toheighten awareness of phonemic segmentation, called for the childto listen carefully as a word was pronounced with elongated soundsand to move a chip as she or he heard each new sound in the word.

The effectiveness of the restructured program was evaluated inmultiple ways. First, the participating students' achievement wascompared with an absolute level of achievement (proficient grade-

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level reading). Second, end-of-year achievement of the participatingChapter I students was compared with nonparticipating students(from district programs that were not enrolled in the restructuringeffort.) Finally, the researchers compared the end-of-year perfor-mance of the participating Chapter I students with nonidentifiedclassmates who had begun the year with higher performance onreading assessments. All three forms of assessment revealed signifi-cant differences in favor of participation in the restructured pro-gram, in terms of primer-level fluency, first-grade text fluency, andperformance on a standardized reading assessment.

COMPUTER SUPPORT FOR READING INSTRUCTION

Recent advances in computer technology offer new support forreading instruction. Digitized and high-quality synthetic speech hasbeen incorporated into programs focusing on phonological aware-ness and issues related to emergent literacy, letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, phonological decoding, spelling, and support forword decoding and comprehension while reading and writing sto-ries. Computer speech, along with interesting graphics, animation,and speech recording, has supported the development of programsthat are entertaining and motivating for both prereaders and begin-ning readers.

Talking books, widely distributed on CD-ROM, are among themost popular programs that claim to improve children's reading.Book pages are presented on the computer screen, and children canselect the whole text or specific words and phrases to be read aloudby the computer. The most popular books include many cleveranimations that are highly entertaining to children, perhaps so muchso that they distract from the task of reading; children can oftenaccess the animations without paying any attention to the print.

Storybook software displays storybooks on the screen. The pro-grams come not only with software but also with ordinary printedmaterial available for use without a computer. Some are stand-alonetitles, such as Living Books and Discus books. Others are parts oflarger sets, such as IBM's Stories and More and Josten's Dragontales.

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Multimedia writing tools engage children in oral language abouttheir composing acts and final compositions. Children integratepreviously prepared background illustrations, their own drawings,and writing into either stand-alone "papers" or multimedia slideshows.

The development of comprehensive literacy software for pre-primary and primary-grade literacy has been accelerating, togetherwith the more recent surge in the power/cost ratio of desktop com-puters. IBM's Writing to Read program set the stage for classroomuse of comprehensive literacy software programs for use in begin-ning reading instruction. Comprehensive literacy software programsthat have been developed more recently and for which systematicevaluation has begun include Foundations in Learning by Break-through, Early Reading Program by Waterford, and the Little PlanetLiteracy Series by Young Children's Literacy Project.

Although the promise of new computer technology is real, it isstill only a promise by any large-scale measure of effectiveness toaddress reading instruction. First, the availability of serviceabletechnology in U.S. schools remains unevenly distributed across schooldistricts and is generally low. Second, for schools that have or aregiven hardware and software, studies repeatedly report implementa-tion difficulties (Cuban, 1986; Sandholtz et al., 1997; Schofield,1995).

Finally, even if current computing and networking resources wereuniversally and easily available and practitioners were universallyprepared to use them in their classrooms, their potential educationalvalue depends on the quality of the software itself. Software canpromote learning only to the extent that it engages students' atten-tionyet software that engages students' attention may or may notpromote learning. The features and dynamics of software that deter-mine its educational efficacy are subtle and, despite developers' bestintentions, are often absent or mismanaged (Papert, 1996). As com-puting resources become more available, software that is well mar-keted, adequately engaging, and superficially appropriate may bepurchased and used for educational purposes regardless of its realeducational value in improving students' reading performance. Todate, a great deal of educational software design is a commercial art

f5


rather than an instructional science: it needs to be both. An analyticbase is urgently needed for properly guiding and evaluating futureeducational software offerings.

In summary, with the availability of technology, quality soft-ware, and well-prepared practitioners, there is the potential for stu-dents to benefit. The materials described in this section were de-signed to offer distinct instructional strategies for learning to read;evaluation of each has revealed successful literacy growth and devel-opment in children (Sharp et al, 1995; Heuston, 1997; Zimmerman,1997). Yet the use of educational technology and software is notavailable for all children; low and uneven distribution of technologyplaces low-income and minority school districts at a disadvantage.Many schools do not have enough computers or have outdatednonfunctioning equipment. They may even lack the technical sup-port and knowledge needed to maintain the use of computers inclassrooms. Ultimately, constant evaluation and development ofthese resources will increase the value of technology in education.

RETENTION IN GRADE

In recent years, some schools have raised their kindergarten en-trance age and have adopted the use of screening tests to determineschool readiness (Cannella and Reiff, 1989). Some parents, hopingto avoid early school failureor to increase the likelihood of havinga child who excels in comparison to classmateshave responded tothe increased academic demands of kindergarten by holding theiryoung children out of school for an extra year before kindergarten.This practice is sometimes referred to as "buy a year" or BAY (Mayand Welch, 1984). One effect of this growing practice is that the gapbetween the most and least advanced children in kindergarten andfirst grade has widened, making it more likely that children at thelow end of their classes initially will appear even less successful whencompared with older classmates.

In order to accommodate the perceived needs of at-risk children,schools have turned increasingly to providing them with an extrayear of school. In addition to retention, or repetition of a grade,some school districts' extra-year programs, variously known as

23 0


prekindergarten or transitional first-grade or developmental first-grade classes, serve to extend the school career of many youngsters,as does retention at a grade level. Provisions for extra time in schoolare also secured through full-day (as opposed to half-day) kindergar-ten classes and through extending the length of the school year.Generally, the purpose of such options is to allow children the timeand appropriate experiences needed for future school success.

Across the nation, the children most likely to be retained in earlygrades are those who are younger than their classmates, boys, chil-dren from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnic or linguisticminorities (Meisels and Liaw, 1993). In the early grades, failure toachieve grade-level expectations in reading is the primary reason forretention. Retention has many supporters among teachers, adminis-trators, and the public, but there is little evidence that retentionpractices are helpful to children (Shepard and Smith, 1990).

It is also important to note that few of these studies distinguishbetween children who are merely retained and those who are re-tained and receive special assistance. One such study found morefavorable longitudinal results for achievement for children who didreceive special services in the year following a grade retention.

A frequently cited effect of retention is the significantly higherschool dropout rate for students who have experienced grade reten-tion (Roderick, 1994). Other research indicates that dropping out isnot a one-time, one-moment phenomenon. Students begin droppingout long before they are actually considered dropouts for data col-lection purposes. Clearly, we need to learn more about the social,emotional, and cognitive factors that precede dropping out. Fur-thermore, in the absence of better research, it is probably unwise tosuggest, as some have, that the practice of retention in kindergartenand first grade should be entirely banned. It is certainly possible thatfor some children repeating a grade with services from a readingspecialist or related service provider may produce more positive re-sults than merely repeating the same sequence of instruction withoutany modifications, or moving on to the next grade with or withoutsupport. Nevertheless, the value of retention as a practice for pre-venting reading difficulties has not yet been amply demonstrated.


SPECIAL EDUCATION FOR LEARNING DISABILITIES

One response to the problems of children with reading difficul-ties is placement in special education programs, primarily servicesfor children identified as learning disabled. In this section we discusssome factors that have limited the delivery of special education ser-vices to children with reading difficulties in the primary grades, aswell as ways to maximize the benefits of reading instruction in theseprograms.

Federal legislation, notably Public Law (P.L.) 94-142 in 1975and its amendments in 1986, was enacted to ensure the basic right toappropriate education for all children with disabilities, includingspecific learning disabilities in reading and writing. Congress in-tended that special education should address the problem of identi-fying and treating reading disabilities during the early school grades.

However, the law contained a definition of specific reading dis-ability that has often contributed to an unfortunate delay in identifi-cation and treatment: to be eligible for special education placement,children must exhibit a severe discrepancy, typically 1.5 standarddeviation units, between standardized tests of their reading achieve-ment and their general intellectual ability. Schools are often hesitantto use standardized tests of reading achievement or IQ before thethird grade, in the belief that most children with early reading prob-lems will grow out of them. Longitudinal studies have shown, how-ever, that most children who are substantially behind at the end offirst grade remain behind in the later grades (Juel, 1988). When thedisparity between achievement and IQ is finally noted in the latergrades, it may be much more difficult for remedial instruction tocounteract the emotional and educational consequences of early read-ing failure.

A second problem with the aptitude-achievement discrepancycriterion is that basic reading deficits and responsiveness to interven-tion have not been shown to be significantly different in childrenwho meet or do not meet this criterion (discussed in Chapter 3). Forexample, a child with a standard reading score of 75 and an IQ of 90is likely to show similar benefits from remedial instruction whencompared with a child who has a reading score of 75 and an IQ of

4


100, but only the latter child would have a sufficient aptitude-achievement discrepancy to be eligible for special education servicesin most states. The learning disabilities field is acutely aware of theproblems created by an arbitrary discrepancy criterion for specialeducation services (see Lyon, 1995). The 1997 reauthorization ofP.L. 94-142, however, still includes the earlier discrepancy criterionfor specific learning disabilities.

In addition to the need for earlier intervention with less emphasison aptitude-achievement discrepancy, there are a number of othercomplexities involved in considering the role of special education foryoung children with reading difficulties. The 1997 reauthorizationof P.L. 94-142 discussed several concerns that needed to be ad-dressed. These included the assurance of quality instruction in theregular classroom to reduce the number of students needing specialeducation services, the use of proven methods and well-trained teach-ers in special education programs, greater attention to the effectiveintegration of special education and regular classroom instruction,and the maintenance of high expectations for the achievement ofchildren with learning disabilities.

An important component of the 1997 reauthorization of P.L. 94-142 is its detailed agenda for additional research aimed at improvingspecial education. Specified areas of research include the design ofassessment tools to more accurately determine the specific needs ofchildren with reading disabilities, longitudinal studies such as theone by Englert et al. (1995) to determine the optimal methods andintensity of instruction, and studies of effective practices for prepar-ing teachers to provide services to children with learning disabilities.The knowledge gained from this research and its disseminationthroughout the nation's teaching colleges and primary schools willhelp special education programs increase their contribution to theearly prevention and remediation of reading disabilities.

Although many current special education programs for childrenwith reading disabilities may fail to address some or all of the aboveconcerns, there are some well-documented examples of successfulprograms. In one, the Early Literacy Project (ELP), special educatorsworked in collaboration with university educators to devise an ap-proach that would be meaningful and beneficial for students with

26.3


mild disabilities in primary special education classrooms (Englertand Tarrant, 1995).

The principles of the Early Literacy Project include embeddingliteracy instruction in meaningful and integrated activities that spanthe disparate areas of the literacy curriculum (reading, writing, lis-tening, speaking), guiding students to be self-regulating in their learn-ing activity, and responsively instructing students. Activities involvethe reading of connected text (using choral and partner reading toenhance word attack and fluency) and writing connected text (usingemergent writing principles as well as strategy instruction in compo-sition), interwoven through the use of a thematically based curricu-lum and teaching. Students in the Early Literacy Project also con-tinue to receive instruction in Project Read, a systematic approach tophonics instruction that was in place in the participating schools.The comparison children for a study of the effectiveness of the ELPprogram were students in special education settings who were re-ceiving Project Read instruction only.

The outcomes indicated that the average gain of children in theProject Read condition was .5 years on measures of word reading.The growth on the part of ELP students ranged from .7 years forthose students whose teachers were in the project one year to 1.3years for those students whose teachers were in their second year ofthe project. Furthermore, of the 23 students who received two orthree years of instruction in their original teachers' classrooms, 19were reading at or above grade level by the end of the second or thirdyear and only four students continued to read below grade level.

This research is significant in several respects. First, it illustrateshow curriculum and instruction can be designed and conducted inspecial education settings to advance children's literacy learning.Second, the finding regarding the more significant gains made bychildren whose teachers were more experienced in this form of in-struction points out the important role that teacher expertise plays inmaximizing their effectiveness with students who have significantreading problems. Finally, in the push for the inclusion of all chil-dren in the general education classroom, regardless of disability con-dition, it is important that we not lose sight of the intensive assis-tance that many of these students need in order to achieve at grade

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level; assistance that will be very difficult to provide in a classroomcontext in which there is a ratio of 1 teacher to 25 to 30 children.

CONTROVERSIAL THERAPIES

Perhaps because of the serious consequences that a history ofreading difficulties poses for children, or perhaps because of theintractable nature of some of these reading problems, the area ofreading and learning disabilities has seen more than its fair share oftherapies. These therapies are controversial in the sense that they arenot supported by either contemporary theoretical understandings ofthe causes and nature of reading problems, nor are they supportedby an empirical base. The therapies range from psychological topharmaceutical to neurophysiological interventionsalthoughclearly not all such therapies are controversial.

A number of reviews provide examples of controversial treat-ments that have garnered the attention, typically of the news media,and in turn, of parents and professionals as well (Hannell et al.,1991; Kavale and Forness; 1987; American Optometric Association,1988; Worral, 1990; Silver, 1987). Those interventions for which,currently, there are no confirmed or replicated research findings thathave nevertheless been touted to address reading and learning dis-abilities include: (a) neurophysiological retraining, which includes"patterning," optometric visual training, cerebellar-vestibular stimu-lation, and applied kinesiology; (b) nutritional therapies, such asmegavitamin therapy and elimination (of synthetic flavors and col-ors) diet therapies; (c) the use of tinted lenses to correct for colorsensitivity and thereby cure dyslexia; and (d) educational therapies,such as modality testing and teaching.

The consequences of the proliferation of quick fixes have anethical dimension. As desperate parents cling to the hope for amiracle cure for their child's learning problem, more efficacious so-lutions are ignored. The disappointments add to the stresses alreadyexperienced by the parents of children with reading problems. Anumber of these therapies are a financial burden. Clearly parentsneed guidance and children need the best interventions for which wecan develop evidence as to their efficacy and feasibility.


SUMMARY

Several important themes have been stressed in this chapter.First, each literacy intervention must be considered in light of avail-able resources, including financial, instructional, cultural, timing,and time required. Second, it is imperative to assess the existingexternal factors or characteristics before simply adding an interven-tion. Consideration must be given to the adequacy of existing in-structional practices before deciding to implement any intervention.Third, the process of determining appropriate interventions musttake into account the characteristics of students who are at risk forfailure. For example, if an entire school is at risk, it might be wiserto begin an intervention that includes school-wide restructuring, aspresented in Chapter 7, than to devote resources on an isolatedturtoring technique.

Furthermore, a close examination of the successful supplemen-tary interventions described in this chapter reveals a number of com-mon features across these studies:

Duration of the interventiongenerally occurring on a dailybasis for the duration of a school year or a good portion of theschool year.

The amount of instructional timeall successful interventionsinvolve more time in reading and writing than for children not atriskbut extra time is not sufficient in itself.

In each case, there is an array of activities that generally con-sist of some reading (and rereading) of continuous text. In addition,each intervention features some form of word study. In some cases,specific strategies for decoding are incorporated.

In all cases, writing is an important feature. However, thewriting activity is not simply support while engaging in inventedspelling; it is typically conducted in a more systematic manner.

Although materials vary among the interventions, in each casethere is careful attention paid to the characteristics of the materialused, whether they are characterized as predictable, patterned, se-quenced from easy to more difficult, or phonologically protected.

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There is a focus on using text that children will find interesting andengaging.

Each program includes carefully planned assessments thatclosely monitor the response of each child to the intervention.

Professional development of teachers, teachers aides, and profes-sional or volunteer tutors were integral to each programthere is animportant relationship between the skill of the teacher and the re-sponse of the children to early intervention. Effective interventionprograms pay close attention to the preparation and supervision ofthe teachers or tutors.

0.; 04, (...)

PART IV

Knowledge into Action

Both knowledge about reading and a commitment to improve-ment are required in order to develop and implement policies andpractices that will help prevent reading difficulties among youngchildren. In Part IV we describe the contemporary situation andpropose our recommendations for change.

In Chapter 9, we discuss the impact that this report must have onthe professionals who have daily interactions with the children inday care centers, preschools, kindergarten, and the early elementarygrades and on children's families and other community members.Governmental bodies (including federal, state, and local educationagencies), publishers, and the mass media also have an impact on theissues.

The best approach to teaching children to read has for decadesbeen a matter of considerable controversy and passionate confronta-tion. At this point, the science base has developed sufficiently topermit this synthesis of the research on early reading developmentwith the goal of making recommendations about preventing difficul-ties in reading. In Chapter 10, we weave the insights of manyresearch traditions into clear guidelines for helping children becomesuccessful readers.

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9

The Agents of Change

Families and other community members are clearly important inthe effort to prevent children's reading difficulties, and many of thestrategies described in Chapters 5 and 8 are pursued outside school-ing. But to reach the important national goal of preventing readingdifficulties among young children, the professionals who have dailyinteractions with the children in day care centers, preschools, kinder-garten, and the early elementary grades are the most essential audi-ence for the information in this report. We therefore give teachersand teacher education the most detailed treatment in this chapter onagents of change. We also consider the ways that federal, state, andlocal education agencies, publishers, and mass media have an impacton the issues. Each of these groups needs knowledge about readingand a commitment to improvement in order to develop and imple-ment policies and practices that will help prevent reading difficultiesamong young children. In this chapter, we describe the currentsituation; in the next, we present our recommendations for change.

In broad outline, the prevention of reading difficulties is notexotic. In school and out, young children can profit from a widerange of experiences. In classrooms in which teachers use effectiveteaching and organizational strategies and appropriate materials,

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u, Jr


most children make progress. Throughout their early years, childrencan consolidate their knowledge and skills as they recite songs andrhymes, play with the sounds of words, interact with the meaningand the print while people read to them and take them to the library,play at reading and writing, and get engaged with activities throughtelevision programs such as Sesame Street.

To prevent reading difficulties, children should be provided with:

Opportunities to explore the various uses and functions ofwritten language and to develop appreciation and command of them.

Opportunities to grasp and master the use of the alphabeticprinciple for reading and writing.

Opportunities to develop and enhance language and meta-cognitive skills to meet the demands of understanding printed texts.

Opportunities to experience contexts that promote enthusi-asm and success in learning to read and write, as well as learning byreading and writing.

Opportunities for children likely to experience difficulties inbecoming fluent readers to be identified and to participate in effec-tive prevention programs.

Opportunities for children experiencing difficulties in becom-ing fluent readers to be identified and to participate in effectiveintervention and remediation programs, well integrated with ongo-ing good classroom instruction.

Children need the full variety of opportunities and enough of each sothat they are successful readers. Adults in different roles in societyhave different opportunities and obligations to make changes so thatreading difficulties can be prevented.

TEACHER PREPARATION

Teacher preparation is fundamental in order to prevent difficul-ties in reading among young children. A recent study of more than1,000 school districts concluded that every additional dollar spenton more highly qualified teachers netted greater improvements in

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THE AGENTS OF CHANGE 279

student achievement than did any other use of school resources(Ferguson, 1991).

Today's teachers must understand a great deal about how chil-dren develop and learn, what they know, and what they can do.Teachers must know and be able to apply a variety of teachingtechniques to meet the individual needs of students. They must beable to identify students' strengths and weaknesses and plan instruc-tional programs that help students make progress. In addition tothis expertise in pedagogy, teachers must master and integrate con-tent knowledge that underlies the various subjects in the children'scurriculum.

Pre-service and in-service teacher education is intended to de-velop teacher expertise for teaching reading and preventing readingdifficulties, but it encounters many obstacles. Programs for teachers'professional development often flounder, lacking a strong appren-ticeship system and hobbled by the course-by-course approach incollege education. They cannot meet the challenge inherent in tryingto prepare teachers for highly complex and increasingly diverseschools and classrooms; the challenge of keeping abreast of currentdevelopments in research and practice once teachers begin to teach;the complexity of the knowledge base itself, which often appears tosupport conflicting positions and recommendations; and the diffi-culty of learning many of the skills required to enact the knowledgebase, particularly to work with those children having the most diffi-culties.

Early Childhood Education

The field of early childhood education has traditionally offeredprofessional training at prebaccalaureate levels in both pre-serviceand in-service programs. Some colleges of education have baccalau-reate and master's degrees for early childhood teacher educationprograms, but often they are add-on programs to an elementaryteaching certification. Sometimes training in early childhood educa-tion is divorced from the schools of education, housed instead indepartments of home economics, for example. Given the cognitivecomplexity and practical importance of development in early child-

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(1. (


hood, preschool education could be a very demanding and interest-ing major course of study, but it is seldom presented as such.

In many states, certification requirements for early childhoodeducation are nonexistent. Preschool teachers have a generally lowrate of pay (compared, for example, with elementary school teach-ers); they are generally seen to have lower status than elementaryschool teachers both in practice settings and in universities and otherpractitioner preparation settings.

Little systematic attention has been paid to in-service educationand other options for professional development for preschool teach-ers. There are, however, some thought-provoking programs forpreparing people to focus on literacy with preschool children, andthey raise interesting problems. Box 9-1 is an example of one suchprogram.

Preschool teachers are an important resource in promotingliteracy. In view of the power with which language and literacyskills at elementary school entry predict children's responsiveness toearly reading instruction, the ability and commitment of early child-hood professionals to support the skills that provide a foundationfor reading need to be taken seriously. Programs that educate earlychildhood professionals should include in their curricula informa-tion about:

how to provide rich conceptual experiences that promotegrowth in vocabulary and reasoning skills;lexical development, from early referential (naming) abilitiesto relational and abstract terms and finer-shaded meanings;the early development of listening comprehension skills, andthe kinds of syntactic and prose structures that preschool chil-dren may not yet have mastered;young children's sense of story;young children's sensitivity to the sounds of language;developmental conceptions of written language (print aware-ness);development of concepts of space, including directionality;fine motor development; andmeans for inspiring motivation to read.


BOX 9-1Preparing Preschool Teachers to Promote Literacy

A 15-year partnership between the Erikson Institute and Head Startstaff in Chicago has evolved into professional development that spans 10months of the year and includes seminars as well as work in preschoolcenters. Preschool practitioners have durable preconceptions of whatactivities are appropriate and productive for the children they work with,as McLane and McNamee (1990, 1997) point out. When the Institutestaff introduces the Head Start teachers to new activities, strategies, orconcepts that can foster literacy, the effort can be undermined unlessattention is paid to the adaptations practitioners make to the new activi-ties, strategies, and concepts when they take them into their classrooms.

The institute researchers found it especially important to grapple withHead Start teachers' preference for oral over written communication.When the in-service curriculum focused on shared storybook reading, ittended to be realized as storytelling by the Head Start teachers in theirwork with the children; emergent group writing tended also to turn intostorytelling; dramatic play that once had a literacy focus would turn intoplay devoid of reference to written language (McLane and McNamee,1997). When the teachers transformed the activities, the results might beenjoyable and valuable for the children, but the part of the activity thatwas intended to foster literacy often disappeared.

Only given more extended collaborative work between the institutestaff and the Head Start teachers were such problems ironed out and thenew approaches refined for maximum value for literacy support. McLaneand McNamee came to recognize that the teachers valued oral languageartistry and creatively provided occasions for children to develop it. Someof the teachers, though, as they grew up in the same communities thatthe children currently in their care are being reared in, had developed nofondness for reading and writing. It was easy, then, for the teachers tode-emphasize and eventually lose the literacy aspect of new activitieswhen doing them with the children. With continued effort to address theliteracy purpose of the new activities in seminars and in the context of thespecific preschool classrooms, the in-service education was more com-plete and the literacy aspects of the new activities appeared more reli-ably.

A critical component in the preparation of preschool teachers issupervised, relevant, clinical experience in which pre-service teachersreceive ongoing guidance and feedback. A principal goal of thisexperience is the ability to integrate and apply the knowledge base in

6EST COPY AVAiLko 293


practice. Collaborative support by both the teacher preparationinstitution and the field placement is essential.

Each state has developed and published minimal standards forgroup child care settings (public or private), addressing such issuesas adult-child ratio, safety, and health. In general, however, thesestandards do not adequately address cognitive, linguistic, and lit-eracy supports. Professional standards for early childhood class-rooms have been elaborated by the National Association for theEducation of Young Children. Head Start has identified perfor-mance standards, which are reviewed and evaluated every three yearsduring site visits to every Head Start program. It is notable thatrelatively few of the evaluation items are related to issues of thequality of the language or literacy environment.

Although public education does not extend to preschools, move-ments in many states have given children access to preschool regard-less of their parents' ability to pay. The National Governors Asso-ciation has adopted the following objective: "All disadvantaged anddisabled children will have access to high-quality and developmen-tally appropriate preschool programs that help prepare children forschool" (National Governors Association, 1992). Subgoals are listedfor states to use to assess progress toward this objective. One subgoalis to track the percentage of programs that are accredited by theNational Association for the Education of Young Children or theNational Association of Family Day Care and the programs thatemploy a majority of staff with a child development associate cre-dential. The governors' programs have a good track record withelementary school systemic reforms. Given this record and the inter-est in early childhood programs stimulated by publicity about brainand behavior developments in the early years, activism by the Na-tional Governors Association about preschools can serve as leveragepoints for change in preschool programs and the preparation ofadults working in them.

There is a widespread lack of specificity about literacy and lan-guage development in preschool reform efforts. In contrast, in aposition paper on teacher preparation the Orton Dyslexia Societytakes the following position on requirements for preschool teachers(1997:16):

2 4

THE AGENTS OF CHANGE

In addition to stimulating oral expressive language, language comprehen-sion, and print awareness, nursery school and kindergarten teachers shouldknow how best to foster phonological awareness and to link recognitionof sounds with letters. Teachers of young children should know how toidentify the language problems of children at risk for reading difficulty.

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Elementary School Education

In the typical pre-service course of study, very little time is allo-cated to preparing to teach reading. Virtually all states require thatK-3 teacher credential candidates do at least some course work inthe teaching of reading (National Association of State Directors ofTeacher Education, 1996). In some cases, reading is embedded in acourse for teaching English language arts, diluting the focus on read-ing. The amount of time is insufficient to provide beginning teacherswith the knowledge and skills necessary to enable them to help allchildren become successful readers. As Good lad (1997:36) notes:

Most teachers of the primary grades take one course in the teaching ofreading. Some take two, so that the average is about 1.3 courses perteacher. This is about enough to enable teachers to accelerate a little thereading prowess of children who learn to read quite readily. It is enoughto enable teachers to become quite facile in sorting the children into threegroupsone of good, one of fair, and the other of poor readers. . . .

Diagnosis and remediation of the nonreaders lie largely outside the reper-toire of teachers whose brief pedagogical preparation provided little morethan an overview.... [M]any first grade children are taught by successivewaves of neophytes, large numbers of whom drop out after three or fouryears of teaching.

Given the severe constraints on the amount of time that can bededicated to any one topic in a teacher education program, teacherpreparation must be seen as a career-long continuum of develop-ment. In other words, learning to become a successful teacherofreading or any other subjectcannot be seen as the consummatefunction of an undergraduate program or a fifth-year credential pro-gram. Indeed, what needs to be learned cannot be learned in thelimited time available in formal education. Instead, teacher prepara-tion must be seen as a long-term developmental process, beginningwith undergraduate preparation, continuing with professional


schooling in upper-division and fifth-year courses and field practica,and continuing further once teachers are technically credentialed orlicensed and working in classrooms but are still serving apprentice-ships before becoming fully expert teachers.

Beginning teachers, particularly for children who are learning toread, cannot be expected to rely on the little preparation their pre-service courses provide; no teachers, beginning or experienced, canbe expected to grow professionally if isolated. Professional develop-ment includes not only formal meetings and courses but also oppor-tunities for teachers to work with each other and to visit classrooms.The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996)has called for support for beginning and for more experienced teach-ers. Beginning teachers must be successfully inducted into the pro-fession and be provided with additional support, opportunities, andincentives for further education to ensure their early and continuedsuccess. More experienced teachers must continue receiving sub-stantive and effective in-service education opportunities, with highlyeffective teachers receiving rewards and acknowledgments for theirskills and demonstrated effectiveness.

What Elementary Teachers Need to Know

In Table 9-1, we align teacher preparation with the opportunitiesthat should be provided to young children in order to best preventreading difficulties, listing what teachers need to know to be able toprovide adequately for their students. Some of the knowledge basecan be acquired in general college education, before a concentrationin teacher preparation. Other aspects are the more specific knowl-edge and skills that should be organized as course work andpracticum experiences for teacher education.

Take, for example, the first set of studies in Table 9-1, related togiving children the opportunity to explore the various uses and func-tions of written language and to develop appreciation and commandof them. Teachers must have a deep understanding of the what, thehow, and the why of language and literacy. To know enough toteach children, they must acquire an understanding of the nature oflanguage that is firmly based on linguistic research about phonologi-

296

TA

BL

E 9

-1 T

each

er P

repa

ratio

n N

eede

d to

Pro

vide

Opp

ortu

nitie

s fo

r C

hild

ren

to B

ecom

e R

eade

rs

Tea

cher

Stu

dyFo

r C

hild

Opp

ortu

nity

Lin

guis

tic a

nd p

sych

olin

guis

tic s

tudi

es:

dist

inct

ive

and

cont

rast

ing

feat

ures

of

wri

tten

and

oral

lang

uage

, the

rela

tion

betw

een

phon

olog

ical

uni

ts a

nd a

lpha

betic

wri

ting

onto

geny

of

oral

and

wri

tten

lang

uage

incl

udin

g bi

lingu

al d

evel

opm

ent

Rhe

tori

cal,

soci

olog

ical

, soc

iolin

guis

tic, a

nd a

nthr

opol

ogic

al s

tudi

es:

genr

es, r

egis

ters

, and

fun

ctio

ns o

f te

xts,

soc

ial a

nd c

ultu

ral c

onte

xts

of te

xts

and

liter

acy

activ

ities

, var

ied

theo

retic

al a

ccou

nts

of p

roce

ssin

g m

eani

ng,

soci

al a

nd r

egio

nal d

iale

ct v

aria

tions

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing

(tea

chin

g an

d as

sess

ing)

:ac

tiviti

es w

ith a

var

iety

of

text

s fo

r yo

ung

child

ren

inte

grat

ion

of s

choo

l exp

erie

nce

with

wri

tten

lang

uage

out

of

scho

ol

Psyc

holo

gy o

f re

adin

g:st

udie

s of

ora

l lan

guag

e, p

hone

me

iden

tity

and

man

ipul

atio

n, le

tter-

soun

das

soci

atio

n, w

orki

ng m

emor

yon

toge

ny o

f al

phab

etic

rea

ding

and

wri

ting

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing

(tea

chin

g an

d as

sess

ing)

:ac

tiviti

es w

ith s

uble

xica

l str

uctu

re o

f sp

oken

lang

uage

activ

ities

ass

ocia

ting

lette

rs w

ith s

ound

sac

tiviti

es to

aut

omat

e w

ord

iden

tific

atio

n pr

oces

ses

(1)

to e

xplo

re th

e va

riou

s us

es a

ndfu

nctio

ns o

f w

ritte

n la

ngua

ge a

nd to

deve

lop

appr

ecia

tion

and

com

man

dof

them

.

(2)

to g

rasp

and

mas

ter

use

ofth

e al

phab

etic

pri

ncip

le in

rea

ding

and

wri

ting.

BE

ST C

OPY

AV

AIL

AB

LE

297

cont

inue

d on

nex

t pag

e

TA

BL

E 9

-1 C

ontin

ued

Tea

cher

stu

dyFo

r C

hild

Opp

ortu

nity

Lin

guis

tic a

nd p

sych

olog

ical

stu

dies

:on

toge

ny o

f or

al a

nd w

ritte

n la

ngua

ge a

bilit

ies,

incl

udin

g re

latio

ns a

mon

gm

eta-

cogn

itive

abi

litie

s, p

rint

pro

cess

ing

abili

ties,

and

com

preh

ensi

on a

bilit

ies

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing

(tea

chin

g an

d as

sess

ing)

:ac

tiviti

es to

dev

elop

and

pra

ctic

e co

mpr

ehen

sion

and

met

a-co

gniti

on s

trat

egie

son

ora

l lan

guag

e, o

n w

ritte

n te

xt r

ead

alou

d, a

nd a

s th

e ch

ild r

eads

inde

pend

ently

activ

ities

to d

evel

op c

once

pts

and

wor

ds (

oral

and

wri

tten)

Psyc

holo

gica

l, so

ciol

ogic

al, a

nd a

nthr

opol

ogic

al s

tudi

es:

vari

atio

ns in

soc

ial a

nd c

ultu

ral c

onte

xts

asso

ciat

ed w

ith p

rint

and

ora

lla

ngua

ge a

nd a

chie

vem

ent m

otiv

atio

n

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing

(tea

chin

g an

d as

sess

ing)

:ac

tiviti

es to

ser

ve a

nd e

xpan

d th

e lit

erac

y go

als

of th

e le

arne

r, c

ultiv

ate

a va

riet

y of

inte

rest

s, a

nd a

cces

s th

e af

fect

ive

aspe

cts

of w

ritte

n an

dor

al la

ngua

geac

tiviti

es to

enl

ist t

he a

ctiv

e co

oper

atio

n of

fam

ilies

and

com

mun

ityin

stitu

tions

to s

uppo

rt th

e ch

ild le

arni

ng to

rea

d

Psyc

holo

gica

l and

soc

iolo

gica

l stu

dies

:st

udie

s of

ris

k fa

ctor

s fo

r re

adin

g di

ffic

ultie

s, a

sses

smen

t pro

cedu

res,

diag

nost

ic m

easu

res

and

syst

ems

for

mon

itori

ng p

rogr

ess

in r

eadi

ngst

udie

s of

pre

vent

ion

prog

ram

s in

sch

ools

and

out

nV

(3)

to d

evel

op a

nd e

nhan

ce la

ngua

gean

d m

eta-

cogn

itive

ski

lls to

mee

t the

dem

ands

of

unde

rsta

ndin

g pr

inte

dte

xts.

(4)

to e

xper

ienc

e co

ntex

ts th

atpr

omot

e en

thus

iasm

and

suc

cess

inle

arni

ng to

rea

d an

d w

rite

and

inle

arni

ng b

y re

adin

g an

d w

ritin

g.

(5)

for

child

ren

likel

y to

exp

erie

nce

diff

icul

ties

to b

e id

entif

ied

and

topa

rtic

ipat

e in

eff

ectiv

e pr

even

tion

prog

ram

s.

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing:

coor

dina

tion

with

sch

ool a

nd c

omm

unity

res

ourc

es f

or p

reve

ntin

g di

ffic

ultie

sas

sess

ing

child

's n

eeds

and

mat

chin

g to

pre

vent

ion

stra

tegi

esac

tiviti

es to

bui

ld o

n pr

even

tion

stra

tegi

es

Psyc

holo

gica

l and

soc

iolo

gica

l stu

dies

:st

udie

s of

ass

essm

ent p

roce

dure

s an

d di

agno

stic

mea

sure

sst

udie

s of

inte

rven

tion

prog

ram

s in

sch

ools

and

out

Peda

gogy

of

read

ing:

iden

tifyi

ng in

terv

entio

n st

rate

gies

ava

ilabl

e in

sch

ool a

nd c

omm

unity

asse

ssin

g ch

ild's

nee

ds in

rea

ding

and

mat

chin

g w

ith in

terv

entio

n st

rate

gym

anag

ing

cont

inuo

us a

sses

smen

t and

pla

cem

ent c

ycle

s, a

nd tw

o-w

ayin

form

atio

n fl

ow w

ith s

choo

l and

com

mun

ity r

esou

rces

, inc

ludi

ngre

adin

g sp

ecia

lists

, tut

ors,

and

fam

ilyac

tiviti

es th

at in

terv

ene

for

child

ren

in n

eed,

incl

udin

g ex

plic

it in

stru

ctio

nan

d en

rich

men

t exp

erie

nces

that

will

pro

vide

the

cont

ext f

or s

elf-

teac

hing

,an

d in

stru

ctio

n to

com

plem

ent a

nd b

uild

on

inte

rven

tion

stra

tegi

es th

atta

ke p

lace

out

of

the

clas

sroo

m

(6)

for

child

ren

expe

rien

cing

diff

icul

ties

to b

e id

entif

ied

and

topa

rtic

ipat

e in

eff

ectiv

e in

terv

entio

nan

d re

med

iatio

n pr

ogra

ms,

wel

l-in

tegr

ated

with

cla

ssro

omin

stru

ctio

n.

BE

ST

CO

PY

AV

AIL

AB

LE

299


cal, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, rhetorical structures, as well asthe social and linguistic diversity in all of these. From psychologicalresearch, they must understand the processes of producing and un-derstanding spoken and written language and the courses of indi-vidual development among bilinguals as well as monolinguals. Fromthe humanities and other social sciences, they must understand thevariations in structures, contexts, and motives that underlie the con-crete instances of written and oral language in society.

That is an information base that may be acquired before a teacherpreparation program begins. Teacher candidates must also acquirean understanding of the alphabetic principle and the ways in whichoral and written language contrast and support each other as chil-dren emerge into literacy and begin to process written language toread and write. The future teacher's child development study mustfocus on oral language development, emergent literacy development,and the interaction of development and instruction affecting theprocessing of alphabetic print and getting meaning from it.

Course work and practica to take pedagogical advantage of thisknowledge base should teach future teachers how to choose among,create, and work with texts and activities so as to best supportchildren's learning and monitor their progress, providing additionalactivities that challenge or assist individual children as needed. Thetexts should include not only the fictional and expository text thatappears in school books to be read and discussed, but also children'sown writings, with attention to the texts important to the lives of thechildren out of school, like menus and magazines, notes to and fromhome, and written versions of songs they enjoy.

Six addenda should be kept in mind while reading Table 9-1.First, there is not a unique relationship between the items on theteacher study list and the different opportunities that should be pro-vided for children; a course or practicum experience may serve morethan one purpose. Second, each part is necessary to the wholeconstruction of good teaching that can prevent reading difficulties.Third, teacher study should include preparation for keeping abreastof new developments in the field of teaching reading to young chil-dren and for separating the wheat from the chaff therein, as well aspractice in translating new information about literacy development

300


and difficulties into instructional and assessment activities for chil-dren. The knowledge base will continue to grow and teachers needto be informed consumers of research. Fourth, making schools andstaff accountable for improved results must go hand in hand withsupport for staff and for staff development. Fifth, the responsibilityfor continuous improvement is shared by a community in the school;there should be pre-service preparation and continuing opportunityfor teachers to work with colleagues to increase their collective abil-ity to meet the needs of the children. Sixth, teaching beginningreading and preparing teachers to do so should be the top priority inschools with a record of widespread poor reading performance.

Teacher Education

Teacher education has been under attack for a number of years.The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996)recently issued yet another scathing indictment, calling the state ofteacher preparation "a great national shame." In a review of theliterature on professional growth among pre-service and beginningteachers, Kagan (1992:162) concludes that "almost every one of the40 studies reviewed [here] indicates that university courses fail toprovide novices with adequate procedural knowledge of classrooms,adequate knowledge of pupils or the extended practica needed toacquire that knowledge, or a realistic view of teaching in its fullclassroom/school context." Kagan's review has been criticized(Grossman, 1992; Dunkin, 1996), but many teachers seem to agreewith her dark appraisal of the state of teacher education (Lyon et al.,1989; Rigden, 1997).

Several commentators note that teacher preparation for the teach-ing of reading has not been adequate to bring about the research-based changes in classroom practices that result in success (Corlett,1988; Nolen et al., 1990; Moats and Lyon, 1996; Moats, 1994).Even if sufficient course work with the needed content were avail-able, the problem of transferring the knowledge to the futureteacher's practice must be addressed. Case-based instruction withinteractive video could be a powerful tool in reaching this goal (seeBox 9-2); as with early childhood education, however, the critical

301

290 PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDR'EI'F

BOX 9-2Case-Based Instruction

Case-based instruction is the norm in business education, and it isbecoming more common in teacher pre-service education. One set ofmaterials has been produced to assist in case-based pre-service teachereducation related to reading (Risko and Kinzer, 1997; Risko, 1991). Likeother case-based instruction, it includes lesson plans, students' readingscores and records, descriptions of the activities undertaken, and back-ground information. The cases are available to be more fully exploredthan most, because videodiscs are included; the instructor and studentscan view and review actual classroom footage as well as superimposedifferent audio tracks onto the teaching events so that the perspectives ofparents, administrators, and expert discussants can be linked to theteaching-learning interactions. Of the eight cases, four focus on ordinarydevelopment in reading and four on remedial treatment, reflecting a rangeof situations (urban, suburban, rural, advantaged and disadvantaged pop-ulations, ethnic and language diversity), and half of the cases deal withchildren under grade 4. Evaluations during the five-year developmentperiod have shown differences in the courses in which the cases areused as well as in practicum experiences that the students encounteredlater (Risko, 1992, 1996; Risko et al., 1996).

The patterns of participation in the pre-service courses that used thematerials were different and led to increased student ability to integratesources of information in order to identify problems and resources forsolution. In the subsequent practicum, the student teachers who hadlearned from the videodisc cases were more persistent in problem solv-ing, more likely to identify problems that arose, and more adept at seek-ing help to solve them. It appears that a pre-service teacher educationprogram can find case-based instruction useful as a bridge between thecourse-based and practicum-based elements of a program of studies.

component in the preparation of pre-service teachers is supervised,relevant, clinical experience in which pre-service teachers receiveongoing guidance and feedback. A principal goal of this experienceis the ability to integrate and apply the knowledge base productivelyand reflectively in practice.

Continuing professional development should build on the pre-service education of teachers, strengthen teaching skills, increaseteacher knowledge of the reading process, and facilitate the integra-

3 ,c_,;


tion of newer research on reading into the teaching practices of theclassroom teacher. Professional development efforts, however, areoften poorly implemented and fail to assist teachers to learn complexconceptualizations and make needed changes in their teaching prac-tice (Little et al., 1987).

There are severe structural constraints on in-service teacher edu-cation: in the United States, teachers teach all day, have very fewpupil-free days as part of their working year, and have very fewopportunities to develop new knowledge and skills on the job. Ad-ministrative and political commitment to in-service education is lack-ing, as evidenced by the limited time and financial resources madeavailable. On average, districts spend less than one-half of 1 percentof their resources on staff development (Darling-Hammond, 1996).

A 1978 study reported that the average teacher in the UnitedStates engaged in the formal study of teaching and schooling, includ-ing new content and curriculum, for only about three days per year(Howey et al., 1978). Professional development in the United Statesis still characterized by one-shot workshops rather than more effec-tive problem-based approaches that are built into teachers' ongoingwork with colleagues (Darling-Hammond, 1996). Considering thebroad knowledge that the elementary school teacher needs to teachin all content areas, as well as knowledge of classroom managementtechniques and appropriate discipline approaches, the percentage ofstaff development time dedicated to reading must be relatively small.

The content, context, and quality of in-service professional de-velopment vary greatly from school district to school district; Calfeeand Drum, in The Handbook of Research on Teaching (third edi-tion, 1986) describe the situation as chaotic. There is no consistencywith respect to content or to the qualifications of providers. There islittle doubt that teachers can learn powerful and complex strategiesfor teaching, provided that they are presented properly (Joyce andShowers, 1988; Lanier and Little, 1986).

Much of the literature on in-service education for theteaching ofreading focuses on the development of effective models for presenta-tion (e.g., Collins et al., 1989; Hollingsworth, 1989; Joyce and Show-ers, 1988; Monroe and Smith, 1985; Winn and Mitchell, 1991). Acommon theme is the importance of modeling, coaching, and ex-


plicit feedback for the learner. Other components of staff develop-ment models include teacher involvement in the planning and devel-opment of the sessions, a relationship between the goals of the in-service sessions and the goals of the school, the opportunity forteachers to discuss and reflect on the content of the sessions, consid-eration of the individual differences in the background knowledgeand preparation of the participants, and a commitment on the partof the learner to apply the information from the in-service sessions toclassroom practice. Reviewing the effects of different components,including theory, demonstration, practice, and feedback, one studyfound consistent effect size increases when components were com-bined, with the largest effect size for both knowledge and transfer topractice when in-class coaching was added to theory, demonstra-tion, practice, and feedback (Bennett, 1987).

Professional development is most satisfactory to the individualsinvolved when it is based on the needs of the professionals in theschool and when it is delivered in the school (Futrell et al., 1995).Quality professional development integrates knowledge and skilldevelopment: meaningful intellectual substance explicating theoriesfrom sources both inside and outside teaching can be tailored effec-tively to the context, experience, and needs of the particular teachersby providing demonstrations and opportunities for practice and feed-back (Little, 1993; Monroe and Smith, 1985; Joyce and Showers,1988).

Researchers point to a shift in the focus of staff developmentfrom specificity, practicality, and intensity in technical support to acognitive-conceptual framework combined with demonstration andpractice (Gersten and Brengelman, 1996). Fundamental understand-ing of the psychological as well as the social nature of reading andwriting on the teacher's part enhances classroom practice (Nolen etal., 1990; Tharp and Gallimore, 1988), mediated by the way thedeepening concepts influence instructional decisions (Nolen et al.,1990).

Simply providing teachers with information about new instruc-tional strategies does not necessarily result in changes in existingteaching behaviors (Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1991a). Instead oflectures, staff development can involve teacher research, discussion

304

THE AGENTS OF CHANGE 2(93

BOX 9-3Teacher-Researcher Partnerships

Hamilton and Richardson (1995) developed and implemented a prac-tical argument model of staff development as part of a reading improve-ment study. The practical argument, a framework for engaging in a dia-logue between teachers and researchers, is used to have teachersexplain why a teaching practice works or does not work. As the justifica-tions for a practice are identified, alternative practices from the work ofcolleagues and related recent research are discussed. A study of theprocess led them to conclude that staff development programs should beinteractive, should address teachers' beliefs and practical knowledgeabout the teaching and learning process, and should examine alternativepractices that instantiate both teachers' beliefs and research knowledge.

groups, school-university partnership study groups, and activitiesassociated with preparation for certification by the National Boardfor Professional Teacher Standards. These forms of staff develop-ment have the potential for bringing cohesion to a school staff andenhancing the collective responsibility for student learning. Col-laborative teacher-researcher partnerships can result in deeper, morelong-lasting changes than do the more common one-shot workshops.Box 9-3 presents an example.

Guidelines and Standards for Teacher Education

To prevent reading difficulties among children, professional de-velopment for teachers should attend to all the elements of teacherknowledge presented in Table 9-1. Efforts have been made to delin-eate the preferred content of teacher education with respect to read-ing at both the pre-service and the in-service stages, but none arecomplete models; the best way to develop and use them for maxi-mum effect on children's learning has not been studied.

Pre-service Guidelines There are two routes for addressing qualityassurance in pre-service education for teachers: (1) accreditation ofthe institutions that prepare teachers and (2) certification or licens-

30.E


ing of the individual beginning teachers. In the United States, theseare state functions, but the federal government has a small role in thefirst process. For accreditation, it recognizes (most recently in 1995)the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education(NCATE) as an accrediting body for schools, departments, and col-leges of education. So that state approval processes do not require aduplication of effort by the institution seeking accreditation, 36 stateshave a partnership agreement with NCATE.

NCATE accreditation is voluntary, and less than half of theapproximately 1,200 institutions that prepare teachers apply for ac-creditation. NCATE expects the accreditation process to provide theteacher education community with opportunities to improve pro-grams and to identify good programs to serve as models for improve-ment. NCATE has about 30 constituent members, organizationsthat represent stakeholders, like the American Association of Col-leges for Teacher Education, the National Education Association,and the American Federation of Teachers, as well as a variety ofsubject area organizations (such as the International Reading Asso-ciation and the National Council of Teachers of English) and spe-cialist organizations (such as the Council of Chief State School Offic-ers and associations of members of boards of education).

In essence, NCATE develops and revises standards and indica-tors for teacher education units, and programs within them, to meet.With respect to early reading, NCATE has curriculum guidelines forearly childhood education, elementary education, and advanced pro-grams for reading education.

While there is nothing in the guidelines contrary to the needs forteacher preparation listed in Table 9-1, it is worrisome to note thelack of specification about the details of knowledge of written andoral language and ways to teach reading. The elementary educationguidelines omit important matters for teacher preparation. In con-trast to the standards for mathematics, which mention "the develop-ment of number sense" (NCATE, 1989:69), nothing about "soundsense" or "letter sense" is mentioned in the 13 guidelines related toreading, writing, and oral language (NCATE, 1989:69-70), and thereis no mention about the important relation between the sound struc-ture of language and the alphabet used in reading and writing. Even

306


in the advanced programs for reading education (NCATE 1992:199-215), the use of letters and the relation of sound units to alphabetelements go unnoted.

A second route for considering the quality of pre-service teacherpreparation involves the licensing of teachers. As with accreditation,the only way to address licensing criteria nationally is through vol-untary collaboration among states. The Interstate New Teacher As-sessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) provides a way forstates to work cooperatively to formulate policies to reform teacherpreparation and licensing. It has developed a draft set of model corestandards, expressed as principles elaborated in terms of knowledge,dispositions, and performances (Interstate New Teacher Assessmentand Support Consortium, 1992). INTASC has begun developingdiscipline-specific standards that elaborate on the core standards.

Reading appears in the INTASC English-language arts docu-ments, now available in draft form. The guidelines show clearly animpact of some recent research. Current and sophisticated rhetori-cal theory is reflected in several places. With respect to early readingand preventing reading difficulties, research related to emergent lit-eracy has had an impact, and sociolinguistic and ethnographic find-ings have influenced the treatment of student diversity. Just as withthe NCATE guidelines, however, the current INTASC draft stan-dards fail when it comes to specificity about learning related to thealphabetic principle.

In-Service Professional Development Guidelines As this report hasdemonstrated, there are important recent developments in the under-standing about learning to read, its developmental progress, andinstruction to support it. Teachers who are already licensed musthave opportunities to keep up with the changes in the knowledgebase and to develop improved instructional strategies. Several groupsare developing standards and guidelines for in-service teacher educa-tion.

Some are state-level initiatives coordinated with other reformsrelated to reading instruction. An example is the blueprint for pro-fessional development for teachers of early reading instruction pro-duced by the California County Superintendents Educational Ser-

3 0


vices Association under the auspices of the California State Board ofEducation (1997). The blueprint lays out what teachers need to doand know in nine categories: phoneme awareness; systematic explicitphonics instruction; spelling; diagnosis; research; structure of theEnglish language; relationships between reading, writing, and spell-ing; improving reading comprehension; and student independentreading of good books. Although this is a full plate, and a few of thetopics on teacher knowledge listed in Table 9-1 are missing from theblueprint, for example, matters related to emergent literacy develop-ment during what the blueprint calls the "pre-alphabetic stage."

Another approach to standards is related to the National Boardfor Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). This is a nationwideeffort that experienced teachers volunteer to participate in. NBPTShas developed standards for national board certification for expertteachers with different specialties (e.g., for early childhood general-ists, middle childhood generalists, and middle childhood Englishlanguage arts). The standards address the content of professionaldevelopment indirectly by describing the outcome achievements forteachers considered accomplished members of their profession. In amore direct way, the standards have become a curriculum for somelocal professional development efforts (such as the Minnesota HighSuccess Consortium described in Buday and Kelly, 1996). With re-spect to reading in early childhood, however, the NBPTS standardspay insufficient attention to some aspects of teacher knowledge thatare listed in Table 9-1, for example, the alphabetic principle.

Teachers Providing Special Services

An important part of a school's program for preventing readingdifficulties is the teachers who have responsibilities and specific ex-pertise for supporting and teaching children identified for specialservices. This includes not only special education teachers but alsothose who work with children identified on the basis of limitedEnglish proficiency or economic background, as well as those takinga specialist role with respect to reading instruction and the preven-tion of, or intervention in, reading difficulties.

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These teachers need to know what other primary-grade teachersknow, but they also need continuing access to detailed research,effective practices, and modes of working with quality materials thataddress the particular challenges they and their students face. Themore in depth and varied their professional resources, the morelikely they are to be able to find a way to work effectively with eachchild. The etiology of a specific child's difficulty may be unknownor the subject of dispute; the validity of a measurement instrumentor the effectiveness of a technique may be untested on certain sub-groups; and information about a child's prior and concurrent homeand community life may be particularly difficult to obtain, interpret,and use wisely. It is particularly crucial that these teachers havecontinuing access to professional development related to childrenlikely to or already experiencing reading difficulties. They need:

knowledge of ways to access and evaluate ongoing researchregarding typical development and the prevention of reading diffi-culties;

knowledge and techniques for helping other professionals(classroom teachers, administrators) learn new skills relevant forpreventing or identifying and ameliorating reading difficulties; and

knowledge and techniques for promoting home support (byparents and other household members) to encourage emergent andconventional literacy and to prevent or ameliorate reading difficul-ties.

The Orton Dyslexia Society (1997) has produced a position pa-per on teacher education relevant to special services teachers. Box 9-4 includes the relevant excerpts.

Teachers of language-minority students need additional profes-sional development services:

If students are in a bilingual education program where theyare learning to read in a non-English language, teachers must havean understanding, accompanied by strategies and techniques, forteaching children to read in that language. For alphabetic languages,such as Spanish, many of the same principles that are valid in English

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29E? PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

BOX 9-4What Teachers Need to Know to Be

Effective Teachers of Reading

Core Requirements:1. Conceptual foundationsthe reading process. "Teachers must be pro-vided with a solid foundation regarding the theoretical and scientific un-derpinnings for understanding literacy development"( p. 12).2. Knowledge of the structure of language, including knowledge of (a) theEnglish speech sound system and its production, (b) the structure of En-glish orthography and its relationship to sounds and meaning, and (c)grammatical structure.3. Supervised practice in teaching reading

Training Requirements for Reading Specialists, Resource Room/SpecialEducation Personnel[The above 3 areas plus]"because these specialists are likely to be working with children with moresevere reading problems, they need to know how to pinpoint specific ar-eas of weakness in reading performance for children experiencing diffi-culty learning to read. They must have expertise in effective remedialstrategies targeting structured language methods that have been devel-oped to address the needs of children with reading disabilities" (p. 17).

Speech-Language Specialists"should know how to assess the phonological abilities of children andother aspects of the structure of language relevant to reading and writing.Expertise in techniques that employ guided discovery of how phonemesare articulated (e.g., Lindamood, 1994) is a valuable skill for enhancingphoneme awareness in children who are not benefiting from strictly audi-tory activities" (p. 17).

are also valid for the other languages; still, there will certainly bedifferences in instructional materials and some differences in instruc-tional approaches, due to specific structural features of differentlanguages (August and Hakuta, 1997).

If non- or limited-English-speaking students are in an Englishas a second language program, where they are learning to read inEnglish, teachers must be skilled in helping these students confront adouble challenge: learning to read while learning English as a second

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language. At a minimum, their teachers should be aware of thepertinent linguistic and cultural differences. Beyond that, they shouldbe especially skilled and knowledgeable about helping these studentssucceed in an inherently very challenging situation.

GOVERNMENT BODIES

The activities of teachers and students are influenced and con-strained by the policies and resources of state and local educationagencies, which in turn are influenced by governors, state legisla-tures, and local school boards. The federal government providesleadership, resources, and incentives, but in the United States, juris-diction over education is a state and local matter.

States

Any current effort to prevent reading difficulties occurs in thecontext of systemic reform, the term used to describe state initiativesbegun in the last decade to improve education. Systemic reforminvolves the interaction of (a) high standards for all children, (b)assessments to measure the achievement of the standards, and (c) thecapacity of teachers and schools to ensure that children achieve thestandards. A review of progress in nine states noted a "disjuncturebetween change oriented political rhetoric and steady incrementalprogress . . . [of] policies that have evolved over the past five to tenyears" (Massell et al., 1997:2). Despite political changes in leader-ship, some public criticism, and financial problems, the continuationof effort is quite remarkable (p. 7):

As criticisms and expert reviews of these more unconventional approachesto standards and assessments mounted, policy makers listened and madenumerous modifications but, importantly, did not completely toss out thenew practices.

The progress is credited to support from the business communitywithin a state and to external support and stimulus from nationalorganizations and projects like the National Governors Associationexchange strategies, the National Science Foundation school reform

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projects, the Goals 2000 initiative promulgated by the federal gov-ernment, and private foundation funding (Masse!! et al., 1997:6).

In general, if states pursue systemic reform and focus on prevent-ing reading difficulties informed by the issues covered in this report,there is a good probability that they will supply the needed leader-ship to districts and schools. State actions on many fronts may havean effect on reading education. Among other things, states canaffect the availability and quality of preschool and day care environ-ments available to all children, the days and length of days availablefor instruction, the support for services like libraries and new tech-nologies during the school year and over the summer, the allocationof additional resources to schools and neighborhoods in great need,norms for salaries and benefits seen for preschool and early elemen-tary teachers, and information clearinghouses for pedagogical tech-niques and evaluation of materials. In this section, we focus on threeprimary areas in which states are especially pivotal for providingboth support and pressure to raise achievement and to minimizereading problems: curriculum standards, teaching capacity, and text-book approval procedures.

Curriculum Standards

Ideally, standards are an important step to ensuring educationalequity within and across schools, school districts, and states and forcommunicating with publishers and teacher education institutionsabout what the state wants. It is important to note that assessmentsfrom districts that adopted high standards earlier than most indicatethat "standards do not damage the academic chances of the leastadvantaged students. Rather, all students appear to benefit fromhigher expectations" (Education Commission of the States, 1996:17).Standards can serve as the common reference point for developingcurricula, instructional materials, tests, accountability systems, andprofessional development. Standards can protect school systemsfrom downward drifts in educational expectations and attainment.

For most states, curriculum standards documents relevant toreading are widely available, providing information on assessment,benchmarks, and sometimes even a specification of curriculum mate-

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rial and activities. Only a few, however, have separate standards forreading. Reading is frequently found within the English languagearts standards, but for some states it is part of the communicationstandards. Most state standards documents start at kindergarten;only a few have prekindergarten standards. Many states have stan-dards for a range of grades (K-3 or K-4), providing little detail forseparate grades.

None of the available standards provides a model that is com-plete and consistent with the knowledge base reflected in this report,but the movement of many states appears promising.

It is not yet clear how effective any of the standards-settingmovements will be with respect to preventing reading difficulties.Most states do not include research on the effects of their standardsas a prominent part of their effort. Oregon, however, has certaindistricts designated as laboratories to evaluate reforms as they arebeing developed. Only Kentucky has an independent nonprofit in-stitute charged with evaluating the impact of reform on students andschools (Education Commission of the States, 1996). Research isneeded on the effectiveness of standards and benchmarks overall, aswell as on the comparative advantages of different approaches todeveloping and using them.

Building Teaching Capacity

States have traditionally had the responsibility for overseeinginstitutions that organize pre-service teacher education as well as forlicensing individual teachers. Changes are under way in severalstates on both fronts, but few have developed sufficiently to be evalu-ated. Ohio, for example, is revising its standards for teacher educa-tion and licensing, building on the work of INTASC and NCATE,and is conducting pilot programs for performance assessment linkedto the beginning teacher license. California, for another example, isbeginning to link high standards for children with accreditation forinstitutions based on assessments of the performance of the insti-tution's graduates.

Many states encourage teachers to meet the professional stan-dards represented by the NBPTS certification. A total of 33 states

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BOX 9-5California's Language Arts Framework

In the late 1980s, California promulgated its English language artsframework advocating literacy instruction that was heavily literature basedwhile de-emphasizing basic, discrete skillsincluding phonics and de-coding (California State Department of Education, 1987a and b).

Dissatisfaction with the literature-based framework began to surfacein the early 1990s, but the move away from literature-based programsbecame a stampede following publication of the 1994 National Assess-ment of Educational Progress results in reading. California's performancewas among the lowest in the nation, and it was one of a handful of statesthat had significantly declined in the reading proficiency of its students.Although there continues to be disagreement over the role played by the1987 language arts framework in California's reading score decline, pub-lic and political pressure to change the direction of reading instructionmounted. In 1996, the California state legislature passed a bill (AB 3075)which required that teachers be prepared to undertake . . . comprehen-sive reading instruction that is research-based and includes all of thefollowing:

(i) The study of organized, systematic, explicit skills including phone-mic awareness, direct, systematic, explicit phonics, and decodingskills.

(ii) A strong literature, language, and comprehension component with abalance of oral and written language.

(iii) Ongoing diagnostic techniques that inform teaching and assess-ment.

(iv) Early intervention techniques.(v) Guided practice in a clinical setting.

entourage teachers to apply for the board certificate by paying thefee and/or providing some released time for preparation and exami-nation. Some states (North Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi) providesalary increases or bonuses for teachers who become board certified.The current California reading reform effort is notable for its verydetailed legislation involving teacher preparation (see Box 9-5).

Textbook Purchasing

Books used in elementary schools are provided free to students inmost states; a few require a rental fee. In about half the states,

31 I


textbook choice is controlled at the state level. In many cases, thestate approves a list of alternatives, and districts or schools or teach-ers must choose among them. There is usually a cycle of five toseven years before a new approved textbook list is drawn up.

Laws and customs vary about the process of textbook approval,its accountability to public scrutiny, selector ethics, safeguards, thecomposition of selection committees, and the provision of trainingfor selectors. In some cases, there are special cycles or special selec-tion committees for subject matter for which the recency and accu-racy of information is seen as particularly important, for instancemathematics, science, and computer science. Books for the teachingof reading are too seldom given the special attention that the devel-opments in understanding about it require. Without special provi-sions, a reform curriculum for children or teacher preparation canflounder in the face of inappropriate books in classrooms.

State approval or failure to approve books influences their pro-duction as well. Textbook publishers produce a product for a profitand are driven by market factors. One enormous influence is thetexts approved by the most populous states engaged in statewideadoptionCalifornia, Texas, and Florida. These are critical mar-kets for the textbook industry, and a reading series that is not on theapproved list in these states is unlikely to be sufficiently profitablefor the publisher to maintain it.

Guidance for selection committees needs to be well thought outand carefully carried out. Many "scoring rubrics" are not useful orare out of date; often, the information publishers are required toprovide is often an inadequate base for rational choice; sometimesmembers of selection committees lack the expertise to judge contentbeyond the labels used in promotional materials. There is no deny-ing the level of difficulty, amount of time, and cost of adequateprocedures for approving books for use in early reading classes.

The burden is on states to conduct full appraisal of programs forearly reading based on more than the main textbooks. Most serieshave optional parts and, especially recently, add-on kits. It is veryimportant that such supplementary material be tied into the teacherguides and that the guides give assistance about scheduling to ensure

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that there is ample opportunity for children to explore and practicethe content covered in the supplementary and basic materials.

States can play a critical role in making sure that effective anduseful information and practices are made available to teachers byinsisting that books and materials adhere to the principles aboutpreventing reading difficulties identified in this report. Ideally, statecurriculum standards and textbook adoption would be synchronized.Texas recently required publishers to develop textbooks that meetthe state standards if they wish to have their materials adopted bythe state, and this requirement will apply to its reading language artsstandards.

Most important, however, complete appraisal requires examina-tion of the texts in use in ordinary school settings. At a minimum,states should acquire and use efficacy data. This can be done pro-spectively by requiring textbook publishers to provide evidence ofeffectiveness based on controlled third-party studies of prototypematerials. It can be done retrospectively by querying about curricu-lum when gathering assessment data. Either approach is rare atpresent. In New Jersey, local districts choose their own books, butthe state is charged with evaluating the effectiveness of what theyhave used and indicating approval or disapproval, after the fact.Only one state, Nevada, mandates classroom testing of the textbookmaterials (with mandated evaluation criteria) prior to adoption.

Efficacy testing related to textbook adoption procedures requiresdifferent technical expertise than currently used by state adoptioncommittees and publishing houses. But it could contribute to elimi-nating the periodic politically and ideologically driven convulsionsin reading education and thus to preventing reading difficultiesamong children.

Local Education Agencies

State initiatives do not fully determine district and school changesin curriculum and instruction. Local districts provide the structuresand resources that interpret policy initiatives for school and class-room practice (Spillane, 1996). Thus, the local district-level involve-ment in school reform efforts is key to their progress. The 25 local

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school districts that Massell et al. (1997) studied have been persis-tent in their drive to school reform.

Local districts must provide teachers with sufficient support andassistance to ensure effective teaching of reading. Districts need tomonitor the implementation of changes in instruction, not assumethat once a policy is adopted it will appear intact in the complexityof schools and classrooms. Once a policy is implemented, the districtmust continue to monitor to ensure that the results are as expectedand to support changes needed to ensure continuous improvement.Unless elected and professional district personnel adopt sound poli-cies and practices consistent with the principles in this report, thechances of large-scale prevention of reading difficulties among youngchildren are small.

The Federal Government

The federal government's role in making the kind of changesneeded to prevent reading difficulties is complex. Each of its func-tions needs to be informed by the principles in this report.

First, federal authority and laws that provide for equitable edu-cational opportunities for young citizens in need throughout thecountry are well knownHead Start, Title I, the Individuals withDisabilities Education Act. Continuing assessment of the results ofthese policies by the U.S. Department of Education and the design ofnecessary changes are important government roles.

Second, the federal government coordinates with education re-form initiatives among the states, as in the education summits andthe recent America Reads/Reading Excellence challenge. Special pro-grams in the U.S. Department of Education undergird these efforts.The various state standards and benchmarks related to reading, forexample, can each be available for other states to learn from becauseof the coordinating efforts of a regional education laboratory.

A third role of the federal government, with respect to prevent-ing reading difficulties, is the stimulation and support of researchnot only by the U.S. Department of Education through its institutesand programs and the centers, laboratories, and institutes that itworks with throughout the country but also by such agencies as the

31e


National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.There is a clear need for the design of research agendas for basic andapplied research in long-term federal research centers and institutesas well as for the support of promising ideas from field-initiatedstudies.

A fourth important role is the action initiatives of the U.S. De-partment of Education, which disseminate information and rewardgood practices. National clearinghouses provide an infrastructurefor researchers; the research summaries and the ASK ERIC serviceprovided through the clearinghouses make the information acces-sible to practitioners and policy makers. Programs that identify andreward outstanding teachers, schools, and districts provide motiva-tion for the excellence to continue and models for others to follow.

Government-sponsored projects that produce brochures, post-ers, and public service announcements make information about read-ing available in a variety of venues. Recent notable efforts includeLearning to Read/Reading to Learn (Office of Special EducationPrograms and the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educa-tors) and Ready Set Read (U.S. Department of Education, the Cor-poration for National Service, and the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services). These are sophisticated campaigns. Take, forexample, the Learning to Read/Reading to Learn campaign. Afterdeveloping a research synthesis, the producers made the results ac-cessible in a series of tip sheets for parents and teachers. The sheetsincluded specific teaching strategies as well as ways to take advan-tage of games and ordinary daily activities to promote reading devel-opment. The campaign also produced a bibliography and a resourcebook of professionals who could help communities to address theimprovement of reading teaching in their schools. Distribution wasfacilitated by partnerships with government and private groups andendorsements from influential people.

PUBLISHERS

Publishers are an influential part of the educational enterprise inany domain of elementary education; the instructional materials theyproduce and market strongly influence how reading is taught in

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schools (Anderson et al., 1989:35). Some innovations that couldhelp to prevent reading difficulties may suffer because they lack astrategy for wide-scale implementation, but classroom textbooks areone of the few already "scaled-up" parts of educational activities.

States can influence what publishers will include in their readingtextbooks through the textbook adoption processes (discussedabove), but the influence also works the other way. Researchers havepointed out that published materials are so embedded in the concreteand daily aspects of teaching that they can influence teachers morethan state standards or frameworks (Ball and Cohen, 1996). Pub-lishers therefore have a serious responsibility, but the question ofinterest is how published materials can contribute to needed im-provements in instruction.

Having the right principles embodied in the textbooks is notsufficient. Education reforms that rely on innovative materials asthe main component can fade or fail to achieve wide-scale impact.On one hand, teachers may not know or have adequate opportunityto learn what they need to know to use the materials adequately; onthe other hand, curriculum designers may not know or have theopportunity to learn about the ways that curriculum materials fitinto the complex concrete situation that teachers face every day. It isthe interplay between professional development and materials devel-opment that holds the key.

"Developers' designs thus turn out to be ingredients innotdeterminants ofthe actual curriculum," Ball and Cohen (1996:6-7)argue. They continue:

When the gap between the materials and teaching is very wideleaving toeach practitioner to figure out how to deal with student thinking, how toprobe the content at hand, and how to map the instruction against thetemporal rhythms of classroom lifeteachers must invent or ignore agreat deal. If they do try to invent and thus learn, they must often learnalone with few resources to help them. Curriculum guides could offersome help in depth while still being humble about the complexities theycannot address. . . . A teacher's guide cannot judge whether a teachershould meet with an individual student or move on, but it can offer con-crete illustrations of the nature of student understanding important at agiven point, and how other teachers have reached this level.

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Research on the effectiveness of an educational program oftenincludes complaints that the classrooms observed are not faithfulreplications of the designer's ideal or an original experimental ver-sion of the program. Taking Ball and Cohen's perspective lets usreframe the issue.

Think of the teacher as a customer of innovative research andmaterials, rather than a patient who may or may not "take as di-rected" the medicine prescribed. Industries other than textbookpublishing design their products with complicated theories of theuser in mind. One study describes different approaches to masscustomization embodied in successful cases from various industriesGilmore and Pine (1997). These strategies depend on makingchanges in the production and marketing process as well as consider-able research and experimentation. "Collaborative customization,"for example, requires a reanalysis of the parts that make up a prod-uct as well as the technology, personnel, and delivery system thatallow coconstruction by the customer and the business of the actualproduct that is bought and used effectively by the customer. There isa striking resemblance between collaborative customization and theuse of research partnerships in professional development (discussedabove).

Currently, in many cases for elementary education, state or localsystems, intending to ensure that public monies are spent on effectivematerials, offer incentives that make mass production, not masscustomization, a sufficient strategy for publishers to pursue. In somestates, a state book depository is the end of the delivery system forpublishers; contact with the teacher-user of the materials is via arepresentative on a state or district book adoption committee andperhaps one or two one-shot workshops on a minimal in-serviceeducation schedule. Under such circumstances, mass customizationof education materials is unlikely to develop naturally and needs animpetus from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers.

Publishers making a productive connection between materialsdevelopment and professional development would have to do re-search on teachers and students (i.e., support or at least use it), asBall and Cohen (1996) point out. They particularly indicate the"vast unprobed areas" in students' thinking about language, but

32C


also note the need for research on teacher knowledge and teacherlearning, especially how materials can support teacher learning andbetter contribute to the enacted curriculum. The development pro-cess for materials would have as a by-product something analogousto the clinical trials run by producers of products that make claimsabout effectiveness for health. Technical reports on the process ofdeveloping and evaluating educational materials should be available,describing research methods, results, and so forth.

Ball and Cohen (1996) provide pointers to the content of pub-lished material that should be customized:

Assistance with expected student approaches to the materialexamples of common sequences of approximations to attaining con-cepts and skills and common misunderstandings, as well as informa-tion about what other teachers have done to make progress in theface of obstacles.

Support for developing the teacher's knowledge of the contentand the pedagogical strategiesrevealing alternative representationsand strategies considered during development and pilot testing of thematerials and explaining the relations among them and the rationalefor final choice.

Support for decisions the teacher makes to fit the material intothe practical context of schoolsthe intellectual, social, and politi-cal processes; the rhythm of the day and the year; the connection toconcurrent academic and nonacademic activities.

Materials developed with attention to these issues would pro-duce a closer correspondence between the designers' understandingof what goes on in the classroom and the reality of what actuallytakes place there. By giving up the fiction that the published materi-als are the only influence on the curriculum actually delivered inclassrooms, published materials could have a more productive effecton it. If states and districts insist that the content of reading text-books for children correspond to standards based on the principlesin this report, and if publishers develop materials with more interac-tion with the customers, the fact that the text materials influence the

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classroom activities more than state frameworks would be no prob-lem; in fact, there would be a partnership for improvement.

MEDIA

There are many ways that the media can be harnessed in theprevention of reading difficulties. We focus on four areas as illus-trations: news, public service announcements, special activities foreducators, and special activities for children.

News about reading and preventing reading difficulties can con-tribute to the public dialogue that is an important part of restructur-ing schools for high-quality student learning (Newmann andWehlage, 1995). Public dialogue about specific contents of highstandards is a crucial part of sustaining school reform. The newsmedia have a social responsibility to provide information about theways that literacy develops among children and the ways that read-ing difficulties can be prevented. Recently, differences among ex-perts about beginning reading have been widely covered by print andbroadcast media. Continuing the coverage to inform the publicabout the processes and what it can do to help is the next challenge.

Information on strategies and methods that are useful for care-takers of very young children can take the form of public serviceannouncements, a kind of video or audio brochure. Some publicservice announcements have appeared advising that parents read toyoung children, for example; that may be enough for a family thatjust needs a reminder, but a sample of the kind of interactions thatare productive might be more useful for caretakers who are lessexperienced or who have a limited or unproductive style when theyread to children. There are a broad range of other informal activitiesthat can be undertaken that could fit the public service announce-ment formatfrom play with internal sound structure of spokenwords to the ways a family can encourage a child's emergent writing.Risk factors, too, could be explained in public service announce-ments (see Chapter 4).

Television directed specifically toward teachers can be found oncommercial cable networks (e.g., Teacher TV on the Discovery chan-nel) as well as on stations operated by school districts. The current

3rr)4. 4,


offerings go far beyond the low production value programs of "dis-tance learning" a decade ago. Now lively debates, discussions ofconcepts, and extensive demonstrations of live classroom experi-ences are offered, sometimes even with a call-in segment. The infor-mation in this report could inform such programming.

Television designed for children is often seen as a competitionfor the kind of reading practice that helps to prevent reading difficul-ties or as a source of values incompatible with success at learning.Parents have been advised to watch along with their children to limitthe problems that might otherwise arise. In fact, it is also importantfor children and adults to watch television programs like SesameStreet together, even though they may not be a source of worry.Parents and day care teachers who play along with the activities andhighlight the productive practices make the most of the good pro-grams for the children's benefit.

Sesame Street is among the most well-known television programsfor children. For 25 years preschoolers have watched it in homesand in preschools. Early studies of the impact of Sesame Streetviewing on academic outcomes were criticized because of the con-founding effects of parent education and other home characteristics.Recent studies, however, have controlled for these factors. A largenational survey showed that 4-year-olds who are frequent viewersare more likely than less frequent viewers to identify colors, count to20, recognize letters, and tell connected stories when pretending toread (Zill et al., 1994). Longitudinal studies confirm the positiveeffects of viewing television programs like Sesame Street that aredesigned with specific principles of child learning in mind. One study,for example, showed that vocabulary gains at age 5 are related tomore frequent viewing of Sesame Street at age 3 (Huston et al.,1990). Another study followed children for three years and foundthat those who viewed Sesame Street frequently at an early age hadan advantage in vocabulary, letter and word recognition, and schoolreadiness, even when the child's language skill and home backgroundfactors were controlled for; furthermore, 6- and 7-year-olds whohad viewed Sesame Street more frequently when they were youngerhad better reading comprehension scores in first or second grade

3 2 s


than children who had been less frequent viewers when they wereyounger (Wright and Huston, 1995).

CONCLUSION

Central among the implementation issues we raise is teacherpreparation and continuing professional development, but we can-not ignore the fact that many parts of society, from parents andcommunity to the federal government, publishers, and the mediashould also take responsibility for bringing about change in the stateof reading education. Many aspects of the existing situation call forresearchers in fields that can contribute to the prevention of readingdifficulties among young children to be active and aware. If there isvariation and change, there is opportunity and need for involvementand analysis by those who know the specifics of literacy learning anddevelopment. From choices about teacher preparation and in-ser-vice development, to the development of curriculum guidelines andstandards, to relations with publishers and media, researchers needto contribute their expertise to understanding what is, developingwhat can be, analyzing the consequences of the innovations, andtrying for improvement again, as needed.

Professional and government leaders concerned about the read-ing problems in our society need to develop campaigns to help de-crease their incidence and prevalence. Previous experiences, bothsuccessful and not, to disseminate knowledge and change behav-iorssuch as smoking cessation, the use of seat belts, childhoodimmunization, promoting healthy eatingprovide starting pointsfor thinking about how we could bring about broad-based changesin literacy practices with young children.

"Dissemination tends to be nobody's job," Weiss (1978) ob-served somewhat pessimistically. Our view is that, in matters ofurgent national importance, such as the prevention of reading diffi-culties, dissemination of what we know and, more important still,implementation of effective practices and policies based on what weknow, are everybody's obligation.

324.

10Recommendations forPractice and Research

As the committee began its study, it was well aware of the his-tory of controversies that have enveloped reading instruction in theUnited States, and it assumed that the science base had developedsufficiently to finally put recommendations regarding reading in-struction on sound scientific footing. The process of conducting thisstudy, of examining the research on reading, has confirmed thisassumption. We have found many informative literatures to drawupon and hope, with this chapter, to weave the insights of manyresearch traditions into clear guidelines for helping children becomesuccessful readers.

Our main emphasis has been on the development of reading andon factors that relate to reading outcomes. We have conceptualizedour task as cutting through the detail of mostly convergent, some-times discrepant research findings to provide an integrated picture ofhow reading develops and thus how its development should be pro-moted.

CONCEPTUALIZING READING ANDREADING INSTRUCTION

Effective reading instruction is built on a foundation that recog-nizes that reading outcomes are determined by complex and multi-

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faceted factors. On the assumption that understanding can movepublic discussion beyond the polemics of the past, we have made itan important goal of this report to make the complexities known:many factors that correlate with reading fail to explain it; manyexperiences contribute to reading development without being pre-requisite to it; and although there are many prerequisites, none byitself appears to be sufficient. Our review of the research literaturemakes clear, nevertheless, the general requirements of effective read-ing instruction.

Adequate initial reading instruction requires a focus on:

using reading to obtain meaning from print;the sublexicall structure of spoken words;the nature of the orthographic2 system;the specifics of frequent, regular spelling-sound relationships;frequent opportunities to read; andopportunities to write.

Adequate progress in learning to read English beyond the initiallevel depends on:

having established a working understanding of how soundsare represented alphabetically;sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with differentkinds of texts written for different purposes; andcontrol over procedures for monitoring comprehension andrepairing misunderstandings.

Effective instruction includes artful teaching that transcendsand often makes up forthe constraints and limitations of specificinstructional programs. Although we have not incorporated lessonsfrom artful teaching practices with the same comprehensiveness as

1Sub lexical means concerning the phonological and morphological components of words,such as the sounds of individual and groups of letters.

2Orthographic means features of the writing system, particularly letters and their sequencesin words.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 315

other topics in the conventional research on reading, we acknowl-edge their importance in conceptualizing effective reading instruc-tion.

Reading is typically acquired relatively predictably by childrenwho:

have normal or above average language skills;have had experiences in early childhood that fostered motiva-

tion and provided exposure to literacy in use;are given information about the nature of print via opportuni-

ties to learn letters and to recognize the sublexical structure of spo-ken words, as well as about the contrasting nature of spoken andwritten language; and

attend schools that provide coherent reading instruction andopportunities to practice reading.

Disruption of any of these factors increases the risk that readingwill be delayed or impeded, a phenomenon particularly prevalent inimpoverished urban and rural neighborhoods and among disadvan-taged minority populations. Within all demographic groups, chil-dren with speech or language impairments, cognitive deficits, hear-ing impairments or who have a biological parent with a readingdisability are at risk for reading difficulties. There are also a numberof children, evidently without any of these risk factors, who none-theless develop reading difficulties. Such children may require inten-sive intervention and may continue to benefit from extra help inreading and accommodations for their disability throughout theirlives. An additional very small population of children with severecognitive disabilities that limit literacy learning will for a variety ofreasons have difficulty ever achieving high levels of literacy.

Three main stumbling blocks are known to throw children offcourse on the journey to skilled reading. One obstacle is difficulty inunderstanding and using the alphabetic principle. Failure to graspthat written spellings systematically represent the sounds of spokenwords makes it difficult not only to recognize printed words but alsoto understand how to learn and to profit from instruction. If a childcannot rely on the alphabetic principle, word recognition is inaccu-

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rate or laborious and comprehension of connected text will be im-peded. A second obstacle is the failure to acquire and use compre-hension skills and strategies. A third obstacle involves motivation.Although most children begin school with positive attitudes andexpectations for success, by the end of the primary grades, and in-creasingly thereafter, some children become disaffected. Difficultiesmastering sound-letter relationships or comprehension skills can eas-ily stifle motivation, which can in turn hamper instructional efforts.

Levels of literacy adequate for high school completion, employ-ability, and responsible citizenship in a democracy are feasible for allbut a very small number of individuals. Yet a substantial percentageof American youth graduate from high school with very low levels ofliteracy. These youth are particularly likely to be from subgroups inour population that traditionally have done poorly in school (Afri-can Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) or to be frompoor urban neighborhoods. However, low literacy at the high schoollevel characterizes many students from all subgroups, including stu-dents who do not belong to identified risk groups. Most of thereading problems faced by today's adolescents and adults are theresult of problems that might have been avoided or resolved in theirearly childhood years.

In this chapter, we present our major findings, conclusions, andrecommendations. We begin with primary and secondary preven-tion3 during the preschool years. We then move to primary andsecondary prevention through educational practice from kindergar-ten through third grade, with particular attention to the provision ofhigh-quality classroom instruction in early reading to all children.Next we address teacher preparation and professional support. Thefinal section provides a research agenda that includes attention toassessment and its role in identifying effective prevention strategies.Although assessment is not at the core of the committee's expertise,we became convinced in the process of the study that the importance

3Primary prevention is concerned with reducing the number of new cases (incidence) of anidentified condition or problem in the population. Secondary prevention is concerned withreducing the number of existing cases (prevalence) of an identified condition or problem inthe population.

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of assessment warranted the attention of the field and of our projectsponsors.

LITERACY DEVELOPMENT DURINGTHE PRESCHOOL YEARS

Public Understanding of Early Literacy Development

Findings: There is abundant empirical and observational evi-dence that the children who are particularly likely to have difficultywith learning to read in the primary grades are those who beginschool with less prior knowledge and skill in certain domains, mostnotably, general verbal abilities, phonological sensitivity, familiaritywith the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading, and letter knowl-edge. Children from poor neighborhoods, children with limitedproficiency in English, children with hearing impairments, childrenwith preschool language impairments or cognitive deficiencies, andchildren whose parents had difficulty learning to read are particu-larly at risk of arriving at school with weaknesses in these areas and,as a result, of falling behind from the outset.

Conclusion: It is clear from the research on emergent literacythat important experiences related to reading begin very early in life.Primary prevention steps designed to reduce the number of childrenwith inadequate literacy-related knowledge (e.g., concepts of print,4phonemic awareness, receptive vocabulary) at the onset of formalschooling would considerably reduce the number of children withreading difficulties and, thereby, the magnitude of the problem cur-rently facing schools.

Recommendation: We recommend that organizations and gov-ernment bodies concerned with the education of young children (e.g.,the National Association for the Education of Young Children, theNational Education Association, the American Federation of Teach-ers, the International Reading Association, state departments of edu-

4Concepts of print are a set of understandings about the conventions of literacy, e.g.,directionality, intentionality, stability, use of blank spaces and letters, and multiple genres anduses.


cation, the U.S. Department of Education) promote public under-standing of early literacy development. Systematic and widespreadpublic education and marketing efforts should be undertaken toincrease public awareness of the importance of providing stimulat-ing literacy experiences in the lives of all very young children. Par-ents and other caregivers, as well as the public, should be the targetsof such efforts, which should address ways of using books and op-portunities for building language and literacy growth through every-day activities both at home and in group care settings.

Identification of Preschool Children withSpecial Language and Literacy Needs

Findings: Cognitive and educational research demonstrates thenegative effects of deferring identification of, and intervention for,children who need additional support for early language and literacydevelopment. They include those who have a hearing impairment,are diagnosed as having a specific early language impairment, areoffspring of parents with histories of reading difficulty, or lack age-appropriate skills in literacy-related cognitive-linguistic processing.There is growing evidence that less supportive early environmentsfor acquiring literacy tend to be associated with several known riskgroups, and that some individual risk factors can be identified priorto kindergarten.

Conclusions: Children who are at risk for reading difficultiesshould be identified as early as possible. Pediatricians, social work-ers, speech and language therapists, and other preschool practitio-ners need to be alert for signs that children are having difficultiesacquiring early language and literacy skills. Parents and other adults(relatives, neighbors, friends) also play a crucial role in identifyingchildren who need assistance.

Research-derived indicators for potential problems include:

in infancy or during the preschool period, significant delays inexpressive language, receptive vocabulary, or IQ;

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at school entry, delays in a combination of measures of readi-ness, including

letter identification,understanding the functions of print,verbal memory for stories and sentences,

phonological awareness,5lexical skills such as naming vocabulary,receptive language skills in the areas of syntax and mor-phology,expressive language, andoverall language development.

Through adult education programs, public service media, in-structional videos provided by pediatricians, and other means, par-ents can be informed about the skills and knowledge children shouldbe acquiring at young ages and about what to do and where to turnif there is concern that a child's development may be lagging in somerespect.

Recommendation: Public authorities and education profession-als should provide research-derived guidelines for parents, pediatri-cians, and preschool professionals so that children who have a hear-ing or language impairment or who lack age-appropriate skills inliteracy-related cognitive-linguistic processing are identified as earlyas possible and given intervention to support language and literacydevelopment.

Promoting Language and Literacy Growth

Findings: Research with preschoolers has demonstrated that (a)adult-child shared book reading that stimulates verbal interactioncan enhance language (especially vocabulary) development andknowledge about concepts of print, and (b) activities that direct

SPhonological awareness means sensitivity to the fact that there are patterns of spokenlanguage that recur and can be manipulated without respect to the meaning that the languagepatterns ordinarily convey.

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young children's attention to the sound structure within spokenwords (e.g., play with songs and poems that emphasize rhyming,jokes, and games that depend on switching sounds within words),and to the relations between print and speech can facilitate learningto read. These findings are buttressed by others showing that knowl-edge of word meanings, an understanding that print conveys mean-ing, phonological awareness, and some understanding of how printedletters code the sounds of language contribute directly to successfulreading. Other preschool abilities, such as identifying letters, num-bers, shapes, and colors, may correlate with future reading achieve-ment, but neither research findings nor theories of reading are avail-able to support the notion that they have a causal link to learning toread.

Failure to develop an adequate vocabulary, understanding ofprint concepts, or phonological awareness during the preschool yearsconstitutes some risk for reading difficulties. Hence, we recommendinterventions designed to promote their growth. At the same time,however, we caution that the focus of intervention should not belimited to overcoming these risk factors in isolation but should bemore broadly designed to provide a rich language and literacy envi-ronment that methodically includes the promotion of vocabulary,the understanding of print concepts, and phonological awareness.Preschools and other group care settings for young children, includ-ing those at risk for reading difficulties, too often constitute poorlanguage and literacy environments. Targeted interventions indicatethat literacy and language environments can be improved.

Conclusions: Research provides ample evidence of the impor-tance of cultivating cognitive, language, and social development dur-ing children's early years. As ever more young children are enteringgroup care settings pursuant to expectations that their mothers willjoin the work force, it becomes critical that the preschool opportuni-ties available to lower-income families be designed in ways that fullysupport language and literacy development. This is perhaps one ofthe more important public policy issues raised by welfare reform.

Recommendations: All children, especially those at risk for read-ing difficulties, should have access to early childhood environmentsthat promote language and literacy growth and that address reading

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risk factors in an integrated rather than isolated fashion. Specifi-cally, we recommend that the following be included in home andpreschool activities:

adult-child shared book reading that stimulates verbal interac-tion to enhance language (especially vocabulary) development andknowledge about print concepts,

activities that direct young children's attention to the phono-logical structure of spoken words (e.g., games, songs and poems thatemphasize rhyming or manipulation of sounds), and

activities that highlight the relations between print and speech.

ENSURING THAT CHILDREN HAVE THEOPPORTUNITY TO LEARN TO READ

Reading Instruction in Kindergarten Through Third Grade

Findings on the mechanics of reading: There is converging re-search support for the proposition that getting started in readingdepends critically on mapping the letters and the spellings of wordsonto the sounds and speech units that they represent. Failure tomaster word recognition impedes text comprehension.

There is evidence that explicit instruction that directs children'sattention to the phonological structure of oral language and to theconnections between phonemes and spellings helps children whohave not grasped the alphabetic principle or who do not apply itproductively when they encounter unfamiliar printed words. Ofcourse, intensity of instruction should be matched to children's needs.Children who lack these understandings should be helped to acquirethem; those who have grasped the alphabetic principle and can applyit productively should move on to more advanced learning opportu-nities.

Findings on comprehension: Several factors have been shown topromote comprehension: vocabulary, including full and precise un-derstanding of the meanings of words; background knowledge aboutthe subject matter; familiarity with semantic and syntactic structuresthat signal meaningful relationships among the words; appreciation

33


of the writing conventions used to achieve different communicativepurposes (e.g., irony, humor); verbal reasoning ability, which per-mits inferences to be made by reading between the lines; and verbalmemory capacity.

Comprehension can be enhanced through instruction that is fo-cused on concept and vocabulary growth and the syntax and rhetori-cal structures of written language, as well as through experiencegained by reading both independently and interactively in dyads orgroups.

Explicit instruction in comprehension strategies has been shownto lead to improvement (e.g., summarizing the main idea, predictingwhat text will follow, drawing inferences, discussing the author'scommunicative intent and choice of wording, and monitoring formisunderstandings).

Conclusions: Our analysis of the research literature in readingacquisition leads us to conclude that, in order to prevent readingdifficulties, formal instruction in reading needs to focus on the devel-opment of two sorts of mastery: word recognition skills and compre-hension skills.

Recommendations on the mechanics of reading:Kindergarten instruction should be designed to provide prac-

tice with the sound structure of words, the recognition and produc-tion of letters, knowledge about print concepts, and familiarity withthe basic purposes and mechanisms of reading and writing.

First-grade instruction should be designed to provide explicitinstruction and practice with sound structures that lead to phonemicawareness, familiarity with spelling-sound correspondences and com-mon spelling conventions and their use in identifying printed words,"sight" recognition of frequent words, and independent reading,including reading aloud. A wide variety of well-written and engag-ing texts below the children's frustration level should be provided.

Instruction for children who have started to read indepen-dently, typically second graders and above, should be designed toencourage children to sound out and confirm the identities of visu-ally unfamiliar words they encounter in the course of reading mean-ingful text, recognizing words primarily through attention to their

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letter-sound relationships. Although context and pictures can beused as a tool to monitor word recognition, children should not betaught to use them to substitute for information provided by theletters in the word.

Because the ability to obtain meaning from print depends sostrongly on the development of word recognition accuracy and read-ing fluency, both of the latter should be regularly assessed in theclassroom, permitting timely and effective instructional responsewhere difficulty or delay is apparent.

Recommendations on comprehension:Kindergarten instruction should be designed to stimulate ver-

bal interaction to instruct vocabulary and encourage talk aboutbooks.

Beginning in the earliest grades, instruction should promotecomprehension by actively building linguistic and conceptual knowl-edge in a rich variety of domains.

Throughout the early grades, reading curricula should includeexplicit instruction on strategies such as summarizing the main idea,predicting events and outcomes of upcoming text, drawing infer-ences, and monitoring for coherence and misunderstandings. Thisinstruction can take place while adults read to students or whenstudents read themselves.

Conceptual knowledge and comprehension strategies shouldbe regularly assessed in the classroom, permitting timely and effec-tive instructional response where difficulty or delay is apparent.

Recommendations on writing:Once children learn to write letters, they should be encour-

aged to write them, to use them to begin writing words or parts ofwords, and to use words to begin writing sentences. Instructionshould be designed with the understanding that the use of inventedspelling is not in conflict with teaching correct spelling. Beginningwriting with invented spelling can be helpful for developing under-standing of phoneme identity, phoneme segmentation, and sound-spelling relationships. Conventionally correct spelling should bedeveloped through focused instruction and practice. Primary-grade

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children should be expected to spell previously studied words andspelling patterns correctly in their final writing products. Writingshould take place on a daily basis to encourage children to becomemore comfortable and familiar it.

Recommendations on reading practices and motivation:Throughout the early grades, time, materials, and resources

should be provided (a) to support daily independent reading of textsselected to be of particular interest for the individual student, andalso beneath the individual student's frustration level, in order toconsolidate the student's capacity for independent reading and (b) tosupport daily assisted or supported reading and rereading of textsthat are slightly more difficult in wording or in linguistic, rhetorical,or conceptual structure in order to promote advances in the student'scapacities.

Throughout the early grades, schools should promote inde-pendent reading outside of school by such means as daily at-homereading assignments and expectations, summer reading lists, encour-aging parental involvement, and by working with community groups,including public librarians, who share this same goal.

Students with Limited Proficiency in English

Findings: Hurrying young non-English-speaking children intoreading in English without ensuring adequate preparation is coun-terproductive. Learning to speak English first contributes tochildren's eventual fluency in English reading, because it provides afoundation to support subsequent learning about the alphabetic prin-ciple through an understanding of the sublexical structure of spokenEnglish words and of the language and content of the material theyare reading. The abilities to hear and reflect on the sublexical struc-ture of spoken English words, as required for learning how the al-phabetic principle works, depends on oral familiarity with the wordsbeing read. Similarly, learning to read for meaning depends onunderstanding the language and referents of the text to be read.Moreover, because being able to read and write in two languagesconfers numerous intellectual, cultural, economic, and social ben-


efits, bilingualism and biliteracy should be supported whenever pos-sible. To the extent possible, non-English-speaking children shouldhave opportunities to develop literacy skills in their home languageas well as in English.

Recommendations:If language-minority children arrive at school with no profi-

ciency in English but speaking a language for which there are in-structional guides, learning materials, and locally available profi-cient teachers, these children should be taught how to read in theirnative language while acquiring oral proficiency in English and sub-sequently taught to extend their skills to reading in English.

If language-minority children arrive at school with no profi-ciency in English but speak a language for which the above condi-tions cannot be met and for which there are insufficient numbers ofchildren to justify the development of the local capacity to meet suchconditions, the initial instructional priority should be developing thechildren's oral proficiency in English. Although print materials maybe used to support the development of English phonology, vocabu-lary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading instruction isappropriate until an adequate level of oral proficiency in English hasbeen achieved.

School-wide Restructuring

Findings: When a large percentage of a school's students arefrom disadvantaged homes, it is often the case that median studentreading achievements in that school will be low. Research has shownthe effectiveness of clearly articulated, well-implemented, school-wide efforts that build from coherent classroom reading instruction.Such school-wide efforts, when they have included coherent regularclassroom reading instruction consistent with the principles articu-lated in this report, have often proven substantially more effectivethan disconnected strategies or restructuring focused on organiza-tional issues that have not included school-wide curricular reform.

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Conclusion: The local adaptation of national models is often amore efficient route to meaningful reform than are numerous localefforts to "reinvent the wheel."

Recommendation: In situations of school-wide poor perfor-mance, school restructuring designs that include dual foci on organi-zational issues and coherent classroom reading instruction should beseriously considered.

Extended Time in Reading-Related Instruction forChildren with Persistent Reading Difficulties

Thus far, we have emphasized quality instruction and an appro-priate curriculum, keyed to high standards, as the primary route topreventing most reading difficulties. However, additional effortswill still be necessary for some children, including supplementarytutoring provided by professionals with specialities in reading andspecial education support and services.

Findings: At present, many interventions for children in theprimary grades are aimed at helping those most at risk of failure, butthey are too often implemented as late as third grade, after a child iswell behind his or her classmates.

Supplementary instruction has merit if the intervention is timelimited and is planned and delivered in a way that makes connec-tions to the daily experiences that the child has during reading in-struction. Supplementary instruction can be a significant and tar-geted enhancement of classroom instruction. In Chapter 8 wepresented a number of programs that have supplementary compo-nents, but the empirical bases for judging their results are oftenweak.

Conclusions: Consistent with the view that reading developsunder the influence of many early experiences, it is the committee'sjudgment that deferring intervention until third or fourth gradeshould be avoided at all costs.

Supplementary programs can neither substitute nor compensatefor poor-quality classroom reading instruction. Supplementary in-struction is a secondary response to learning difficulties. Although

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supplementary instruction has demonstrated merit, its impact is in-sufficient unless it is planned and delivered in ways that make clearconnections to the child's daily experiences and needs during readinginstruction in the classroom.

Recommendation: If a student is receiving high-quality class-room instruction in first grade but is still having reading relateddifficulties, we recommend the following:

Additional instructional services in supplementary reading pro-grams should be provided in the first grade.

Instruction should be provided by a well-qualified readingspecialist who has demonstrated the ability to produce high levels ofstudent achievement in reading.

Materials and instructional techniques should be provided thatare well integrated with ongoing excellent classroom instruction andthat are consistent with the findings, conclusions, and recommenda-tions identified above in "Reading Instruction in KindergartenThrough Third Grade." Children who are having difficulty learningto read do not, as a rule, require qualitatively different instructionfrom children who are "getting it." Instead, they more often needapplication of the same principles by someone who can apply themexpertly to individual children who are having difficulty for onereason or another.

Resources to Meet Needs

Findings: The interventions described in this report require man-ageable class size and student-teacher ratios, ongoing teacher prepa-ration, qualified specialists, and quality instructional materials insufficient quantity. School libraries and media resources need to beused effectively. Nationally, there are steady reductions in the aver-age size of elementary classrooms; however, schools in poor urbanareas continue to show higher class sizes than schools in all otherareas.

Conclusions: To meet the goal of preventing reading difficulties,a greater burden will fall on schools whose entering students areleast prepared in the requisite skills (e.g., schools in poor urban

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areas, schools with high numbers of children who have limited En-glish proficiency.) The resources provided for kindergarten and pri-mary-grade classrooms should be proportional to the amount ofinstructional support needed, as gauged by the entry abilities of theschool's population. This type of resource planning contrasts withthe practice of giving schools bonuses for high test scores as well aspractices directed toward equating per-pupil resources acrossschools.

Recommendations: To be effective, schools with greater num-bers of children at risk for reading difficulties must have extra re-sources. These resources should be used to ensure that class size,student-teacher ratios, teacher preparation and experience, avail-ability and qualifications of specialists, quality and quantity of in-structional materials, school libraries and physical environments willbe at least equal to those of schools whose students are less likely tohave difficulties learning to read.

Volunteer Tutors

Findings: Although volunteer tutors can provide very valuablepractice and motivational support for children learning to read, thecommittee did not find evidence confirming that they are able to dealeffectively with children who have serious reading problems. Effec-tive tutoring programs require comprehensive screening proceduresfor selecting volunteers, training tutors, and supervising their ongo-ing work with children.

Conclusions: Volunteer tutors are effective in reading to chil-dren, for giving children supervised practice in oral reading, and forallowing opportunities for enriching conversation but not usually inproviding instruction per se, particularly for children having difficul-ties.

Recommendation: The role of well-trained and supervised vol-unteer tutors should be to expand children's opportunities for prac-ticing reading and for motivational support but not to provide pri-mary or remedial instruction.

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PREPARATION AND PROFESSIONAL SUPPORTOF PRESCHOOL AND PRIMARY TEACHERS

Beginning Teachers

Findings: Some beginning teachers do not have sufficient educa-tion to enable them to help all children become successful readers.Virtually all states require that candidates for a K-3 teacher creden-tial do at least some course work in the teaching of reading. Toooften, however, such course work is insufficient to provide begin-ning teachers with sufficient knowledge and skills to enable them tohelp all children become successful readers. One major factor is thatvery little time is allocated for preparing teachers to teach reading. Asecond is that teacher training programs are highly variable in theirinclusion of the foundations of reading.

Conclusions: A critical element for preventing reading difficul-ties in young children is the teacher. Central to achieving the goal ofprimary prevention of reading difficulties is the teacher's knowledgebase and experience, as well as the support provided to the teacher;each of these may vary according to where the teacher is in his or herprofessional development and his or her role in the school.

Teachers need to be knowledgeable about the research founda-tions of reading. Beyond this, a critical component in the pre-servicepreparation of primary-grade teachers is supervised, relevant, clini-cal experience in which they receive ongoing guidance and feedback.A principal goal of this experience is the ability to integrate andapply the knowledge base in practice. Collaborative support by theteacher preparation institution and the field placement supervisingteacher is essential. A critical component for novice teachers is thesupport of mentor teachers with excellent records of success in teach-ing reading that results in improved student outcomes.

Recommendations: It is absolutely essential that teachers at allgrade levels understand the course of literacy development and therole of instruction in optimizing literacy development. State certifi-cation requirements and teacher education curricula should be


changed to incorporate this knowledge base, including at a mini-mum:

information about language development as it relates to lit-eracy;

information about the relationship between early literacy be-havior and conventional reading;

information about the features of an alphabetic writing systemand other writing systems;

information about both phonology and morphology in rela-tion to spelling;

information about comprehension and its dependence on otheraspects of reading and on language skills;

information about phonological awareness, orthographicawareness, and writing development;

procedures for ongoing, in-class assessment of children's read-ing abilities;

information on how to interpret and modify instruction ac-cording to norm-referenced and individually referenced assessmentoutcomes, including in-class assessments and progress monitoringmeasures used by specialists;

information about the learning and curricular needs of diverselearners (students with disabilities, with limited English proficiency,with English-language dialect differences);

in settings in which children are learning to read in a languageother than English, an understanding ofas well as strategies andtechniques forteaching children to read in that language and infor-mation about bilingual language and literacy development;

in settings in which non-English-speaking or limited-English-speaking students are in an English as a second language programand learn to read in English, information and skill to help thesestudents confront a double challenge: learning to read and learning anew language;

information on the design features and requirements of a read-ing curriculum;

information about how teachers apply research judiciously totheir practice, how to update their research knowledge, and how to

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influence research agendas, including teacher-researcher collabora-tions; and

information about how to maintain and promote motivationto read and positive attitudes toward reading.

Ongoing Staff Development

Findings: Staff development efforts are often inadequate for anumber of reasons, including the lack of substantive and research-based content, the lack of systematic follow-up necessary forsustainability, and the one-shot character of many staff developmentsessions.

Conclusions: Teachers require ongoing in-service staff develop-ment support to absorb the information about reading and readinginstruction outlined above. Professional development should not beconceived as something that ends with graduation from a teacherpreparation program, nor as something that happens primarily ingraduate classrooms or even during in-service activities. Rather,ongoing support from colleagues and specialists as well as regularopportunities for self-examination and reflection are critical compo-nents of the career-long development of excellent teachers.

Recommendation: Local education authorities and teacher edu-cation programs should give teachers support and skills throughouttheir careers, especially during their early entry into the profession,to ensure that they are well prepared to carry out their mission inpreventing reading difficulties in young children.

Early Childhood Educators

Findings: Many preschool programs do not focus on languageand literacy experiences that provide a foundation for early readinginstruction.

Conclusions: Preschool teachers represent an importantandlargely underutilizedresource in promoting literacy through theacquisition of rich language and emergent literacy skills. Early child-hood educators should not try to replicate the formal reading in-struction provided in schools. Central to achieving the goal of pri-

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mary prevention of reading difficulties is the preschool teacher'sknowledge base and experience and the support provided to theteacher; each of these may vary according to where the teacher is inhis or her professional development.

As with primary-grade teachers, a critical component in the pre-service preparation of teachers is supervised, relevant, clinical expe-rience in which they receive ongoing guidance and feedback. Aprincipal goal of this experience is the ability to integrate and applythe knowledge base in practice. Collaborative support by the teacherpreparation institution and the field placement is essential.

Recommendations: Programs that educate early childhood pro-fessionals should require mastery of information about the manykinds of knowledge and skills that can be acquired in the preschoolyears in preparation for reading achievement in school. Their knowl-edge base should include at least the following:

information about how to provide rich conceptual experiencesthat promote growth in vocabulary and reasoning skills;

knowledge about lexical development, from early referential(naming) abilities to relational and abstract terms and finer-shadedmeanings;

knowledge of the early development of listening comprehen-sion skills, and the kinds of syntactic and prose structures that pre-school children may not yet have mastered;

information on young children's sense of story;information on young children's sensitivity to the sounds of

language;information on young children's understanding of concepts of

print, and the developmental patterns of emergent reading and writ-ing;

information on young children's development of concepts ofspace, including directionality;

knowledge of fine motor development; andknowledge about how to instill motivation to read.

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Professional Reading Specialists

Findings: Special educators, speech and language clinicians, En-glish as a second language teachers, resource room teachers, andother individuals are available in many schools to support the workof the classroom teacher to prevent reading difficulties. Too often,though, these professionals lack specialized knowledge about thetypical and atypical development of reading and of their role insupporting reading instruction.

Conclusions: Schools that lack or have abandoned reading spe-cialist positions need to reexamine their needs for specialists andprovide the functional equivalent of such well-trained staff mem-bers. Reading specialists and other specialist roles need to be definedso that two-way communication is between specialists and class-room teachers about the needs of all children at risk of and experi-encing reading difficulties. Coordination is needed at the instruc-tional level so that children are taught with methodologies that aresynergistic and not fragmented. Schools that have reading specialistsas well as special educators need to coordinate these roles. Schoolsneed to ensure that all the specialists engaged in child study orindividualized educational program (IEP) meetings for special educa-tion placement, early childhood intervention, out-of-classroom in-terventions, or in-classroom support are well informed about re-search in reading development and the prevention of readingdifficulties.

Recommendations: Every school should have access to special-ists, including speech and language clinicians, English as a secondlanguage teachers, resource room teachers, and reading specialistswho have specialized training related to addressing reading difficul-ties and who can give guidance to classroom teachers.

Educational Products and In-Service Development

Findings: There is currently no requirement and little incentivefor publishers or adopting schools to evaluate reading-related mate-rials and in-service programs in terms of their efficacy.


Conclusions: Given the significant expenditures on commerciallydistributed educational products as well as the widespread relianceon the instructional plans and activities they present, critical atten-tion to the instructional quality of textbooks, basal reading series,curriculum kits, education software, and "promising programs" isboth distressingly absent and urgently needed.

Recommendation: Local education agencies should set specificstandards of evidence of efficacy for reading-related materials andin-service programs. Materials purveyors that currently do not pro-vide adequate evidence to support data-based decision making abouttheir products should be required to do so. These standards shouldbe used when states, districts, schools, and teachers are choosingmaterials.

RESEARCH AGENDA

The process of study and discussion on what is known about theeffective prevention of reading difficulties in young children has ledus to recognize a number of issues that are in special need of atten-tion from researchers. In particular, we have identified two newlyemerging areas for research, several related to assessment, and sev-eral related to research on interventions.

Emerging Areas for Research

Benchmarks and Standards

Findings: Many state and local school districts have recentlydeveloped benchmarks or standards specifying what reading skillschildren should have acquired at successive points during their schoolcareers. These efforts vary substantively not only in their content,structure, and specificity but also in proposals for their dissemina-tion and use.

Research affirms that such benchmarks or standards can effec-tively improve reading outcomes but only to the extent that they arevalid, specific, meaningful to teachers, and actually influence in-structional conduct on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, such bench-

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marks and standards potentially afford invaluable guidance to schoolpersonnel, curriculum planners, publishers, software developers, testdesigners, and educational researchers for purposes of designing andevaluating instructional plans and materials, designing and evaluat-ing intervention efforts, monitoring progress over time against aconstant standard, and developing more sensitive and informativeassessments. However, the broader realization of all such benefitswill depend on establishing within the educational system new meth-ods and modes for evaluating and iteratively improving, not only thebenchmarks themselves but also the various options for their appli-cation.

Recommendation: Toward promoting high standards of achieve-ment for all students in all schools, state and local education depart-ments should sponsor research to evaluate and improve the utilityand uses of their benchmarks or standards of reading achievementfor purposes of informing instruction, evaluation, and allocation ofresources and effort, including staffing and staff development as wellas student service options.

Basic Research

Findings: As documented in this report, recent progress in under-standing reading and its difficulties is largely the product, direct andindirect, of findings from basic research. Key contributions haveensued from a number of disciplines, including the neurosciences,linguistics, computer science, statistics, and the psychologies ofmemory, perception, cognition, and development. Significant con-tributions from basic research have clustered under funding pro-grams that have emphasized the study of reading and its difficulties,and they have often been enabled by emerging technologies andcomputational and analytical techniques.

Recommendation: Government agencies and private foundationsshould ensure strong and continuing support of basic research andassociated instrumentation in conjunction with active emphasis onthe pursuit of knowledge relevant to reading and its difficulties.

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Research Related to Assessment

Screening and Identification

Findings: Much has been learned about which particular differ-ences among preschoolers and kindergartners are most prognostic ofearly reading outcomes, and these findings, in turn, have enabledmore effective programs of early intervention. However, the arrayof instruments currently used to measure such differences are timeconsuming and costly to administer, even as they are mutually re-dundant and collectively incomplete with respect to the range ofknowledge and sensitivities on which reading growth, includinglonger-term reading growth, depends. Such measures need to berefined, extended, and, as appropriate, combined into screening bat-teries that are maximally informative and efficient.

Recommendation: Appropriate government agencies and privatefoundations should sponsor research and development directed to-ward improving the efficiency, scope, and sensitivity of screeninginstruments for identifying children at risk of experiencing difficul-ties in learning to read so as best to ensure early, effective interven-tion. Such efforts should address factors that influence the develop-ment of the knowledge and capabilities that constrain literacy growthin the middle and later grades, as well as those related to initialreading acquisition.

Informal and Curriculum-Based Assessment

Findings: Given that effective instruction consists of respondingto children's needs while building on their strengths, it necessarilydepends on a sensitive and continual capacity for monitoring studentprogress. Toward this end, classroom teachers and tutors are in needof a richer and more serviceable inventory of assessment tools andstrategies for day-to-day use in verifying that children are reachingcurricular goals on schedule, in identifying children in need of extrahelp or opportunity, in specifying the particular nature of their needs,and in recognizing when difficulties have been adequately overcometo move on. Currently, the availability, quality, and best use of suchassessment options vary greatly across classrooms and districts.


Recommendation: Toward the goal of assisting teachers in day-to-day monitoring of student progress along the array of dimensionson which reading growth depends, the appropriate government agen-cies and private foundations should sponsor evaluation, synthesis,and, as necessary, further development of informal and curriculum-based assessment tools and strategies. In complement, state andlocal school districts should undertake concerted effort to assistteachers and reading specialists in understanding how best to admin-ister, interpret, and instructionally respond to such assessments.

Decision Making at the School and District Levels

Findings: Schools and school districts are constantly confrontedwith proposals for curricular or organizational change. Whethergauged in terms of time and money or opportunity and hope, thecosts of implementing and even considering such change are substan-tial. Nevertheless, adequate evaluation of the value added by suchefforts is rare in prospect or outcome. Decisions about whether toadopt a new basal program, and if so which one, are an obvious casein point. Concern extends to the range of systemic changes, includ-ing, for example, implementation of new student services, such astutoring programs or after-school instruction, new professional de-velopment initiatives, and even new evaluation strategies.

Recommendation: The appropriate government agencies andprivate foundations should sponsor research to help school systemsdevelop and use data-based decision making. This effort shouldinclude methods and means for:

analysis of the system's strengths and weaknesses so as toidentify and prioritize needs;

evaluation the costs and benefits of proposed solutions to tar-geted problems so as to guide selection ofor, as necessary, theadaptation or design ofthe most promising candidate;

articulation of an implementation schedule and requirementsso as to enable adequate planning;

collection of data and feedback as necessary for monitoringimplementation and measuring results;

34


specification of desired outcome criteria and time lines fortheir attainment;

public documentation of the effort, including implementationconditions and outcomes, so as to share lessons learned with othersystems.

Research on Interventions

Effectiveness of Preschool Interventions

Findings: Increasingly, children at risk of experiencing difficul-ties in learning to read can be identified with a fair degree of accu-racy several years prior to schooling. In complement, there is needfor more rigorous and long-term research on how to assist suchchildren most powerfully and efficiently. Although research affirmsthat some early language and literacy intervention programs haveproduced substantial and long-term benefits, many other such at-tempts have not. The more and less effective attributes of suchprograms cannot be adequately identified on the basis of existingdata.

Recommendations: Toward developing more efficient and effec-tive programs of early intervention, appropriate government agen-cies and private foundations are urged to:

coordinate early screening and intervention research so as toidentify causal difficulties and their most effective redress;

recognize and study the systemic nature of organizationalstructures in order to offer useful interventions at the preschool levelwith ties to family, communities, cultural groups, etc.;

evaluate how promising interventions can be delivered andsustained with greatest efficacy through Head Start programs, home-based programs, day care centers, software, television, and othermedia and social institutions;

sponsor long-term prospective studies of early interventionstrategies to assess the impact and longevity of different interventionstrategies and their components and to determine how those factorsinteract with later instruction and experience, in school and out.

35C


Reading Among Children for Whom English Is the SecondLanguage

Findings: The large and growing number of children for whomEnglish is a second language has thrust upon the educational com-munitypractitioners no less than researchersextremely impor-tant questions and challenges not traditionally addressed within thedomain of reading science. By far the most controversial of these iswhether it is more desirable to promote literacy in a first or secondlanguage for limited-English-speaking children. Although far fromconclusive, there is evidence that initial reading instruction in a child'shome language (e.g., Spanish) makes a positive contribution to lit-eracy attainment (both in the home language and in English) and,presumably, to the prevention of reading difficulties. The question ofhow best to promote literacy learning in either or both languages isjust as important but overshadowed by the politically more volatileissues of which language should be used and for how long. Research-ers and educators possess scant empirical guidance on how best todesign literacy instruction for such children in either their primarylanguage or English, much less in both.

Recommendations: Appropriate government agencies and pri-vate foundations are urged to sponsor research on the factors thatinfluence the literacy acquisition of children for whom English is notthe primary language. For various primary languages (e.g., Spanish,Khmer, Chinese) and along key language dimensions such as alpha-betic and nonalphabetic writing systems and traditionally literateversus nonliterate languages, issues that need to be addressed in-clude:

What are the principal difficulties involved in literacy acquisi-tion in the primary language? What methods of primary languagereading instruction are effective?

What can we learn from successful practices in countries wherethe primary language is the vernacular? To what extent are thesepractices applicable in a North American, English-speaking context?

In what ways might successful methods for teaching primarylanguage literacy be adjusted to anticipate English language literacyacquisition and facilitate the transition to successful English literacy?

35 1


How does the timing of the transition to English influenceliteracy prospects in each language? What are the optimal instruc-tional strategies for such programs and how do they differ as afunction of when the transition is introduced? Once a child makes atransition to English literacy, what are the advantages and disadvan-tages of continuing primary language academic instruction?

Are there threshold levels of oral English proficiency and pri-mary language literacy that are required for successful transition to,and satisfactory achievement in, English literacy? If so, are thereadequate instruments for assessing these levels?

How do similarities and differences in the syntax, semantics,phonology, and orthography of the first language ease or impede thechallenge of learning to read in English? What are the instructionalimplications of these similarities and differences?

To what extent should absolute level of oral English profi-ciency and relative proficiency in English and the primary languagedetermine whether a limited-English-proficient child receives begin-ning and early literacy instruction in English?

Where initial reading instruction is provided only in English,what are the best instructional strategies for developing literacy inEnglish?

What are the long-term literacy consequences of being taughtto read only in a second language (i.e., English)?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of learning toread in two languages? In particular, what are the cognitive costsand benefits? Is there an optimal timing and sequencing of instruc-tion?

Can children learn to read in two languages simultaneously,just as they can learn to speak in two or more languages simulta-neously? What are the advantages and disadvantages of learning toread in two languages simultaneously?

How do cultural issues in how text is used and regarded over-lap with linguistic issues among children for whom English is asecond language?

354.


Role of Dialect in Reading Achievement

Findings: Although it has long been suggested that the dialectfeatures of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and itsphonology create additional challenges for learning to read English,few efforts to test this hypothesis have been undertaken directly.Demonstration studies of linguistically informed instructional pro-grams for African American youth have yielded promising results,but more analytic and longer-term research is required to gaugethese benefits and to understand the factors on which they depend.

Recommendations: Studies of the long-term effects of linguisti-cally informed instructional programs on literacy outcomes forspeakers of AAVE could include:

modifications of phonemic awareness and phonics instructionthat are sensitive to differences in the phonological characteristics ofAAVE and those presumed by English orthography;

exploration of morphemic and word analysis strategies forreinforcing the structure and significance of English orthography;and

research on the role of other linguistic factors, such as syntax,in the reading acquisition of AAVE speakers.

Role of Retention and Extra-Year Programs

Findings: Despite mixed research support, schools continue tooffer as potential solutions the retention of specific children in agiven grade or providing classes of "extra-year" preparation prior tokindergarten or between kindergarten and first grade for groups ofchildren deemed to be at risk. However, there is some evidence toindicate that extra instructional support rather than just the ex-tended time makes a difference in reading outcomes for studentswho are retained in the primary grades. It is unclear whether deliv-ering the extra support during the first year could be more effectivethan offering it the second time around. Furthermore, the differ-

3 5,

_.

.,


ences are not clear between the children who thrive in the long runafter an extra year and those who do not.

Information is needed about the nature of the specific interven-tions for literacy available to children in extra-year programs. Moresophisticated research is needed to specify common factors, if any,that are found for children who are successful following retention oran extra-year program.

Recommendations: Appropriate government agencies and pri-vate foundations should increase research efforts on the role of re-tention and extra-year programs in the prevention of reading diffi-culties. Research should be addressed specifically to the provisionfor appropriate reading instruction and outcomes. Studies of thelong-term effects on literacy outcomes from curriculum variationscould address the following questions:

Can we make screening measures sensitive enough to identifychildren who would benefit from these types of programs?

Does one type of program work better than another (e.g.,outcomes at the end of first grade for children attending transitionalK-1 programs versus those who are retained in kindergarten for anadditional year)?

What are the types of literacy instruction offered by such pro-grams and how do they provide for the needed literacy growth ofindividual children?

What evidence is there that children given such additionaltime or instruction profit more than they would have by proceedingwith their age-level peers?

Software Focused on Literacy

Findings: Preliminary evaluations indicate that well-designedsoftware programs for supporting early literacy development canproduce gains in student performance. Such software can reinforce,motivate, and extend early literacy instruction.

Recommendations: Appropriate government agencies and pri-vate foundations should increase research efforts addressing appro-

354


priate technology that can support reading instruction. Issues thatneed to be addressed are whether the software programs are:

consistent with the recommendations made above for "Read-ing Instruction in Kindergarten Through Third Grade,"

consistent with classroom curricular goals as well as the spe-cific needs of individual children, and

used as a complement tonot as a substitute foreffectiveteaching or a good curriculum.

Effectiveness of Primary-Grade Interventions

Findings: Research affirms that quality classroom instruction inkindergarten and the primary grades is the single best weapon againstreading failure. Indeed, when done well, classroom instruction hasbeen shown to overwhelm the effects of student background andsupplementary tutoring. Although research has made great stridesin identifying the attributes of effective classroom instruction, manyquestions have been inadequately addressed.

Recommendations: Toward improving reading outcomes for allchildren, research toward increasing the efficacy of classroom read-ing instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades should be thenumber one funding priority. Beyond issues addressed in other sec-tions of this chapter, questions in need of answers include:

How best can the development of decoding automaticity behastened?

What factors govern children's induction and generalizationof spelling-sound knowledge and how can they best be fostered?

What are the roles and dynamics of syntactic and semanticfactors in beginning readers? How do they influence the growth ofdecoding and fluency?

Through what means can word recognition and comprehen-sion development be coordinated so that they develop most effi-ciently and synergistically?

What kinds of reading and writing activities and instructionserve to maximize the leverage of each on the other?


How do syntactic competence and awareness influence read-ing growth? What aspects of syntax warrant instruction?

What are the best strategies for building vocabulary growth?What are the keys to improving content-area reading?Can spelling and vocabulary growth be accelerated by learn-

ing about derivational morphology and, toward that end, what arethe best strategies for its instruction?

What kinds of instructional practices and activities serve bestto develop children's habits of self-monitoring for coherence andcomprehension?

What is the impact of early childhood and primary-grade in-structional practices on reading and literacy growth in the middleand upper grades of school? How should the curriculum be changedto maximize such benefit?

What is the actual incidence and nature of the "fourth-gradeslump"? Its prevalence and presenting symptoms should be docu-mented and, if so indicated, research on its underlying causes andbest prevention should follow.

What kinds of curriculum materials (including basal readers)are useful for what purposes, and how can published materials andthe reading/writing curriculum be integrated?

What kinds of knowledge and material support do classroomteachers need for greatest effectiveness?

How can in-service opportunities be used most effectively?What are the best strategies for monitoring and managing the

range of student progress and difficulties in any given classroom orbuilding?

What kinds of classroom, grouping, and staffing optionswould significantly improve instructional delivery in the primarygrades?

What are the best strategies for maintaining constructive com-munication and collaboration between parents and teachers in sup-port of children's reading development?

356

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408

Biographical Sketches

CATHERINE SNOW (Chair) is the Henry Lee Shattuck professor ofeducation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her re-search involves the areas of language and literacy acquisition, as wellas second-language acquisition and bilingualism. She has held teach-ing or research positions at Erasmus University and the University ofAmsterdam in the Netherlands, at the University of Cambridge inEngland, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at UniversidadAutonoma in Madrid. Recent books include Unfulfilled Expecta-tions: Home and School Influences on Literacy (with W. Barnes, J.Chandler, I. Goodman, and L. Hemphill) and Pragmatic Develop-ment (with A. Ninio). She has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in psychol-ogy from McGill University; her doctoral thesis focused on languageacquisition and mothers' speech to children.

MARILYN JAGER ADAMS is currently a visiting scholar at theHarvard Graduate School of Education. Previously she was a re-search scientist at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman Inc., the University ofIllinois's Center for the Study of Reading, and the Reading ResearchEducation Center and adjunct professor at Brown University andStavanger College in Norway. Her research is in the field of literacy

397

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398 PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

acquisition and the development of instructional materials and soft-ware, and her publications include the book, Beginning to Read:Thinking and Learning About Print. Beyond research, she has beeninvolved in the development of a range of educational technologyand materials. She is currently lead literacy advisor for "Between theLions," a public television program on literacy for children ages 4 to8. She received the Sylvia Scribner award for outstanding contribu-tion to research in 1995 for her work on reading and cognition. Shehas a Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from BrownUniversity.

BARBARA T. BOWMAN is cofounder and president of the EriksonInstitute in Chicago, Illinois, a graduate school and research centerfor advanced study in child development, affiliated with Loyola Uni-versity Chicago. She is an authority on early education and a na-tional advocate for improved and expanded training for practitio-ners who teach and care for young children. She has an extensiveteaching background, having served on the faculty of the Universityof Chicago Laboratory School, Colorado Women's College,Nemazee School of Nursing, and the University of Shiraz (Shiraz,Iran), and, since 1966, as a faculty member of Erikson Institute. Sheis past president of the National Association for the Education ofYoung Children and has served on numerous national boards andadvisory panels. Her most recent appointments include the GreatBooks Foundation and the National Board for Professional Teach-ing Standards. She holds a bachelor's degree from Sarah LawrenceCollege and a master's degree from the University of Chicago.

M. SUSAN BURNS is study director of the Committee on the Pre-vention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children and of the Com-mittee on Early Childhood Pedagogy at the National Academy ofSciences/National Research Council. She was formerly on the fac-ulty at the University of Pittsburgh, involved in direct service re-search with young children with emotional and developmental dis-abilities and their families. Her research interests include literacydevelopment in young children, special and early childhood educa-tion, child development, and assessment and implementation of in-

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 399

tervention programs for students at risk of academic failure. She hasa Ph.D. in psychology from Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.

BARBARA FOORMAN is a professor of pediatrics and director ofthe Center for Academic and Reading Skills at the University ofTexas-Houston Health Science Center. She is also principal investi-gator of the Early Interventions Project of the National Institute ofChild Health and Human Development. From 1978 to 1997 shewas professor of educational psychology at the University of Hous-ton. She has extensive research experience in the areas of readingand language development, phonological and orthographic aware-ness, and assessment of reading disabilities. She is the author ofAcquisition of Reading Skills: Cultural Constraints and CognitiveUniversals and has published widely in academic and professionaljournals. She is currently a consulting editor for the Journal ofLearning Disabilities and a member of the New Standards Project.She has a Ph.D. in reading and language development from theUniversity of California at Berkeley.

DOROTHY FOWLER, a national board-certified teacher, teachesfirst grade at Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences inthe public school system of Fairfax County, Virginia. She is anexpert in the areas of early childhood education and reading acquisi-tion. In addition to teaching graduate courses in beginning readingstrategies, she has taught children from diverse backgrounds in pub-lic school systems throughout the United States. She was a memberof the Fairfax County Language Arts Development Team and is theauthor of the language arts resource guide, Primary Purposes. Shehas a B.A. in education from the University of Toledo and an M.A.in education from the University of New Mexico.

CLAUDE N. GOLDENBERG is an associate professor in the De-partment of Teacher Education at California State University, LongBeach, and a research psychologist in the Department of Psychiatryand Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los An-geles. He has conducted extensive research in the fields of Spanish-speaking children's literacy development, home school connections

4111


to support academic achievement, and processes of school changeand improvement. He is author or coauthor of numerous publica-tions, including an article on first-grade Spanish reading improve-ment in Educational Researcher, for which he and coauthor RonaldGallimore received the 1993 Albert J. Harris award from the Inter-national Reading Association. He is currently on the editorial boardsof Elementary School Journal and Literacy, Teaching and Learning.He has previously served on the National Research Council/Instituteof Medicine's Roundtable on Head Start Research. He has a Ph.D.in early childhood and developmental studies from the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles.

PEG GRIFFIN was senior research associate for the Committee onthe Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children and studydirector of the Committee on the Strategic Education Research Pro-gram Feasibility Study at the National Academy of Sciences/Na-tional Research Council. Her early research at the Center for Ap-plied Linguistics focused on literacy education and teacher talk. Withdevelopmental cognitive scientists at the Laboratory of ComparativeHuman Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, shefocused on measurement methodology, teaching and learning ofmath and science, and the use of new technologies. She has a Ph.D.in linguistics from Georgetown University.

EDWARD J. KAME'ENUI is professor of special education anddirector of the Institute for the Development of Educational Achieve-ment (IDEA) in the College of Education at the University of Or-egon, where he currently directs or codirects six federal research andtraining grants. He is associate director of the National Center toImprove the Tools of Educators (NCITE), a five-year project en-gaged in the design of high-quality educational tools. He has pub-lished extensively on the topics of the remediation of learning dis-abilities and the instruction of diverse learners, and he has authoredor coauthored numerous college textbooks. He currently serves onthe editorial boards of Reading Research Quarterly, Learning Dis-abilities Forum, and Scientific Study of Reading. He is a member ofthe research advisory team for the American Initiative on Reading


and Writing sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Hehas a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Oregon.

WILLIAM LABOV is a professor of linguistics and psychology aswell as the director of the linguistics laboratory at the University ofPennsylvania. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciencesand a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience. His research interests within sociolinguistics include the de-velopment of African American Vernacular English, the effects ofdialect differences on reading success, and the causes of increasingdiversity among American dialects; his recent publications in theseareas include Can Reading Failure Be Reversed? A Linguistic Ap-proach to the Question and Principles of Linguistic Change. He iscurrently engaged in research for the Phonological Atlas of NorthAmerica, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Na-tional Endowment for the Humanities, which maps geographic dif-ferences in the sound-to-spelling relationships among mainstreamand minority communities. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia Univer-sity.

RICHARD K. OLSON is a professor in the Psychology Departmentof the University of Colorado at Boulder and a faculty fellow at theInstitute for Behavioral Genetics. He is also the associate director ofthe Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities funded by the Na-tional Institutes of Health. His research focuses on genetic andenvironmental influences on reading and language skills and on thecomputer-based remediation of deficits in these skills. He serves onthe editorial board of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychologyand is vice-president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Read-ing. He has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Oregon.

ANNEMARIE SULLIVAN PALINCSAR holds Jean and CharlesWalgreen Chair in Literacy at the University of Michigan's School ofEducation, where she prepares teachers, teacher educators, and re-searchers to work in heterogeneous classrooms. She has conductedextensive research on peer collaboration in problem-solving activity,instruction to promote self-regulation, the development of literacy


among learners with special needs, and the use of literacy across theschool day. She is an editor of the books, Strategic Teaching andLearning and Teaching Reading as Thinking. She received an earlycontribution award from the American Psychological Association in1988 and one from the American Educational Research Associationin 1991. In 1992 she was elected a fellow by the InternationalAcademy for Research in Learning Disabilities. Her cognition andinstruction article on reciprocal teaching (coauthored with AnnBrown in 1984) is a citation classic. She has M.A. and Ph.D. degreesin special education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHARLES A. PERFETTI is a professor of psychology and linguis-tics, chairman of the Department of Psychology, and a senior scien-tist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh. He has published some 100 articles and chaptersin the field of psycholinguistics, focusing on the process of readingand basic language processes, including both core psycholinguisticsissues and reading ability. He authored the books Reading Abilityand Text-Based Learning and Reasoning and edited the book Learn-ing to Read: Basic Research and Its Implications. He has a Ph.D.from the University of Michigan.

HOLLIS S. SCARBOROUGH is currently a visiting associate profes-sor of psychology at Brooklyn College of the City University of NewYork and a research scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Ha-ven. She is a developmental psychologist with expertise in readingdisabilities, language acquisition, and the cognitive and linguisticunderpinnings of literacy development and dyslexia. Her publishedwork includes many articles on the preschool antecedents of readingdisabilities, on the prediction of reading achievement, on the assess-ment of children's language abilities, and on the literacy habits andskills of adolescents and adults. She is associate editor of the Annalsof Dyslexia and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal ofLearning Disabilities, Developmental Psychology, and AppliedPsycho linguistics. She has a Ph.D. in psychology from New YorkUniversity.

4 1 41


SALLY SHAYWITZ is a professor of pediatrics and codirector ofthe Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention. Her re-search has examined learning and particularly reading from a broadperspective, including epidemiologic, definitional, cognitive, and neu-robiological domains. She is principal investigator of the Connecti-cut Longitudinal Study, a sample survey of schoolchildren beingfollowed from kindergarten (1983) to the present (1998), in additionto coleading the Yale Neurodevelopmental Cognitive Group. She

uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the func-tional organization of the brain for higher cognitive functions, in-cluding reading. She has reported on sex differences in brain organi-zation for language in Nature and on differences in the functionalorganization of the brain between dyslexic and nonimpaired readersin Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition,she has authored reviews of dyslexia for Scientific American and theNew England Journal of Medicine. She currently serves on the edito-rial boards of the Journal of Learning Disabilities, Learning Disabil-ity Quarterly, and the Journal of Women's Health. She has an M.D.from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and was the recipientof the 1995 distinguished alumnus award of the Albert EinsteinCollege of Medicine.

KEITH STANOVICH is a professor of applied psychology at theOntario Institute for Studies in Education at the University ofToronto. His research interests involve the areas of cognitive pro-cesses involved in reading and reading disabilities. He is the authorof How to Think Straight About Psychology (Fifth Edition), and heedited Children's Reading and the Development of PhonologicalAwareness. He has served as the associate editor of Merrill-PalmerQuarterly for a decade and is a member of eight other editorialboards, including Reading Research Quarterly. He has twice re-ceived the Albert J. Harris award from the International ReadingAssociation and in 1995 was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame. In1996 he received the Oscar Causey Award from the National Read-ing Conference for contributions to research. In 1997 he was giventhe Sylvia Scribner Award from the American Association of Educa-

41E


tional Research. He is a fellow of both the American PsychologicalAssociation and the American Psychological Society. He has a Ph.D.in psychology from the University of Michigan.

DOROTHY STRICKLAND is the state of New Jersey professor ofreading at Rutgers University. She was formerly the Arthur I. Gatesprofessor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Aformer classroom teacher, reading consultant, and learning disabili-ties specialist, she is a past president of the International ReadingAssociation. Her areas of expertise include early literacy and litera-ture-based reading and writing. Included among her publicationsare Families: Poems Celebrating the African American Experience,The Administration and Supervision of Reading Programs, LanguageLiteracy and the Child, and Emerging Literacy. She was the 1994recipient of the NCTE Rewey Belle Inglis Award for outstandingwoman in the teaching of English. Her latest book, Teaching Phon-ics Today, is published by the International Reading Association.She has a Ph.D. from New York University.

SAM STRINGFIELD is principal research scientist at the JohnsHopkins University Center for the Social Organization of Schools.He also codirects there the Systemic and Policy Studies section of theCenter for Research on Education of Students Placed at Risk. Hiswork involves the areas of national and international issues in schooleffects, educational program improvement processes, compensatoryeducation, and systemic and policy effects on students placed at risk.He is a founding coeditor of the Journal of Education for StudentsPlaced at Risk and is also an executive committee member at large ofthe International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improve-ment. He has a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Temple Uni-versity.

ELIZABETH SULZBY is a professor in the School of Education atthe University of Michigan and recently was a visiting professor atLeiden University in the Netherlands. At Michigan she is affiliatedwith the Combined Program in Education and Psychology and theCenter for Human Growth and Development. In addition to articles

416


in research journals and research summaries in handbooks (ReadingResearch; English Language Arts; Early Childhood), her numerouspublications include the influential book, Emergent Literacy: Writ-ing and Reading (with William H. Tea le). Her research covers issuesof in-home mother-child interaction with books (with A.G. Bus andMarinus H. van IJzendoorn), emergent reading, emergent writing,early language impairment (with Joan Kaderavek), and the transi-tions into conventional reading and writing. She is currently in-volved in research with Sally Lubeck looking at parent-teacher-re-searcher collaboration in Head Start. She is a past president ofLiteracy Development and Young Children, a special-interest groupof the International Reading Association; she is currently on thePrimary Literacy Panel of New Standards and is conducting researchas part of the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achieve-ment. She has a Ph.D. in reading education from the University ofVirginia.

41.

Index

A

Abecedarian Project, 150, 152ADA, see Americans with Disabilities

ActAdams, Marilyn, 174-175Adult education, 9Adults, 9, 98

child-adult discourse, 148, 167,319, 321, 323

listening/reading comprehension,64-65

see also Parents; TeachersAfrican Americans, 27, 31, 155-156,

242, 243, 316dialect speakers, 156, 239-242, 246,

341first grade, 205NAEP, 97poverty, 155-156

Alliteration, 53, 149, 187Alphabetic principle, 3, 4, 15, 22, 23,

248, 315-316bilingualism, 157deaf children, 164early childhood development, 42,

44, 47, 51, 56

first grade, 207first-third grades, 6, 7, 321kindergarten, 80, 179, 183 184-189phonemic awareness and, 47, 153-

154, 248, 285, 314preventive interventions, 278second grade, 212second-language speakers, 157, 324teacher education, 285, 288, 294-

295, 296, 330tutoring, 259, 261see also Letter identification and

mapping; Print media; Wordrecognition

American Federation of Teachers, 317America Reads/Reading Excellence

Challenge, 305Americans with Disabilities Act, 18Assessment, see EvaluationAttention, 80, 211Attention deficits, 103, 105Attitude, see Motivation and attitudeAudiovisual presentations

for children, 59, 69for parents, 9, 319school-based factors, 130teacher-assistance vs, 214

4418

06

INDEX 407

teacher education, 289-290third grade, 83see also Computer-assisted

instruction; Pictures;Television

Auditory impairments, see Hearingimpairments

Australia, 186Automaticity, 23, 33, 90, 343

computer-assisted instruction, 252-253

early childhood development, 67,75, 79

second-third grades, 210teacher education, 285tutoring, 259word recognition, 75, 79, 90, 252-

253; see also Sight wordsAwards and prizes

students, 130teachers, 306

B

Basal reading, 173, 334, 344curricular design, 173, 189-194,

206-207first grade, 198, 206-207, 208-210kindergarten, 189-194school restructuring, 231second grade, 212, 215third-fourth grades, 214

Basic skills, 175-176Beginning to Read: Thinking and

Learning About Print, 174-175

Beliefs, see Motivation and attitudeBermuda Day Care Study, 148Big books

defined, 181first grade, 196, 200, 203, 204kindergarten, 181, 188, 189school restructuring, 231-232

Bilingual education, 28-29, 136, 157,234, 236, 324-325, 340

federal funding, 18

teacher education on, 285, 288,297-298, 330

Black persons, see African AmericansBook Buddies, 259Book reading

early childhood development, 49,58, 139, 148, 149, 170

family environment, 121, 139, 145,263

kindergarten, 9, 80, 189, 323language-impaired children, 165-

166poverty and, 148predictable books, 182second grade, 211small-group instruction, 263tutoring, 255, 257, 259, 261see also Big books; Rebus books;

Storybooks; TextbooksBirth weight, 104, 162Blindness, see Visual impairmentsBridge, 240-241

C

California, 295-296, 301, 302California Achievement Test, 169Canada, 90, 235Capitalization, letters

first grade, 80, 81, 198kindergarten, 80

CARE, 155Categorical models of risk, 88-91, 102CD-ROM, 59, 264Certification, see Teacher certificationChall, Jeanne, 173-174Chapter I, see Elementary and

Secondary Education ActChinese, 22Choral reading, see Group readingClassificatory analysis, 117Class size, 11, 26, 130, 226, 229-230,

257, 327, 328kindergarten, 178-179poverty, 229see also Student-teacher ratios

41E' BEST COPY AVAILABLE

408 INDEX

Cognitive deficits, 24, 90, 103-104,132, 137, 315, 317, 319

see also Special educationCognitive skills, general, 43, 60, 106

minority cultures, 244parental involvement, 142preschool, 9, 148, 280teacher education, 280, 282third grade, 219

Community-based factors, see termsbeginning "Local..."

Comprehension, 4, 6-7, 62-65, 210-211listening, 64-65, 280, 332see also Reading comprehension

Comprehensive Child DevelopmentProgram, 155

Computer-assisted instruction, 188,248, 252-253, 264-266, 334,342-343

automaticity, 252-253CD-ROMs, 59, 264cost factors, 266minority/poor persons, 266phonological awareness, 265storybooks, 264word recognition, 252-253writing, 265

Concept Oriented Reading Instruction,219-220

Conceptual knowledge, 3, 41-42, 217,219-220, 317

early childhood development, 62,280, 332

first grade, 195first-third grades, 6, 323space, concepts of, 280, 332third grade, 219-220

Concurrent instruction, 136Conferences, 2, 32Connecticut, 88, 90Consonants, 23

African American dialect, 239alliteration, 53, 149, 187first grade, 198, 202-203invented spelling, 59kindergarten, 188silent, 23

426

syllable defined, 22tutoring, 259

Contractions, 241Conventional reading, see "Real

reading"Cooperative Research Program in First

Grade Reading Instruction,173

Correlational studies, general, 39, 101-103, 135, 178

Cost factors, 272, 337computer-assisted instruction, 266publishers, 308risk factor assessment, 102, 132, 133tutoring, 255, 258, 260

Counting, see Numeracy skillsCriterion-referenced testing, 95-96

see also National Assessment ofEducational Progress

Cultural factors, 25, 33, 58, 147, 272literacy as societal goal, 1, 17-20,

29-30, 33-34, 156, 170, 292,324-325

preschool education, 148preventive interventions, 136, 148school-based factors, 68, 226, 227,

242-245second-language speakers, 29, 123,

340teacher education, 299see also Dialects; English as a

second language; Minoritygroups; Socioeconomic status

Curricular design, general, 100, 226,323, 325, 336

basal reading, 173, 189-194, 206-207

curriculum casualties, 25-26first grade, 195first-third grades, 7, 323Hawaiian natives, 244ideological entrenchment, 225local action, 304-305parent education, 143-144publishers and, 307-308second-third grades, 210small-group instruction, 263

INDEX 409

special education, 167-170, 269-270specialists, 231state-level action, 300-301, 302, 304teacher education, 279-282, 294,

296, 330tutoring, 255, 258, 259, 261see also Instructional materials;

Teaching methods

D

Day care, see Group careDeafness, see Hearing impairmentsDecoding, 111, 272, 320, 343

African American dialect speakers,240

deaf children, 164direct code instruction, 199, 202,

204, 205-206early childhood development, 52,

57, 60, 65, 67, 70, 71, 76,79, 81, 82

embedded phonics instruction, 199,201-202, 204-206

first grade, 173-174, 199, 206, 208,209

kindergarten, 188, 191, 251nonstandard dialects, 240reading disabled children, 254school restructuring, 232second grade, 82storybook reading, 143tutoring, 258, 261

Demographic factors, 23, 27-31, 176see also English as a second

language; Families; Localfactors; Minority groups;Rural areas; Socioeconomicstatus; Urban areas

Denmark, 186Department of Education, 1, 32, 89,

305-306, 318Department of Health and Human

Services, 1, 306Developmental factors, see Early

childhood development

Dewey, John, 167Diagnostics, see Screening and

identificationDialects, 27-28, 119, 124, 127, 132,

330, 341African American, 156, 239-242,

246, 341decoding, 240discrimination against, 124grammar, 238, 241phonology, 24

letter-sound relations, 27-28,124, 238-239

poor persons, 124school-based factors, 227, 238-242teachers and, 124, 241-242

Dialogic reading, see Paired readingDimensional models of risk, 91-93, 102Direct code instruction, 199, 202, 204,

205-206Direct Instruction Model, 176Disabilities, general, 4, 24-25, 106,

330familial factors, 119-120phonics, 173-174screening and identification, 9, 132-

133, 158, 159, 162-163, 318,319

secondary symptoms, 103, 132state policy, 282see also Attention deficits; Cognitive

deficits; Dyslexia; Earlylanguage impairments;Hearing impairments;Interventions; Learningdisabilities; Speechimpairments; Visualimpairments

Discriminationagainst dialects, 124against minority groups, 123

DNA, 25Dramatic play, 148, 281Dropouts, 20-21, 234, 316

retention in grade and, 267Dyadic reading, see Paired readingDyslexia, 88-89, 91, 271, 282, 297, 313

421

410 INDEX

E

Early childhood development, 2, 41-84, 135-171

alphabetic principle, 42, 44, 47, 51,56

automaticity, 67, 75, 79book reading, 49, 58, 139, 148,

149, 170conceptual knowledge, 62, 280, 332decoding, 52, 57, 60, 65, 67, 70,

71, 76, 79, 81, 82families, 57, 69, 139, 145-147, 171fluency, 75-79grammar, 48infants, 155, 160letter identification and mapping,

57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 70, 71-72,116, 319

deaf children, 164longitudinal studies, 72media influences, 57

television, 57, 59, 278, 311-312memorization, 71memory, 63-64, 76, 77monitoring, 63-64, 76, 77morphology, 73-74, 110, 111, 319phonology, 46-47, 51-57, 59, 60,

332phonemic awareness, 47, 51-57,

60, 71-73, 80, 81phonological awareness, 51-57,

60poverty, 58print

awareness of, 59-60, 70-71, 80concept of, 45, 69

reading comprehension, general, 60,62-65, 75-78

semantics, 53, 77, 83sentences, 48-49, 50, 108sounds, 46-47, 51-57, 59, 332spelling, 42, 43-44, 60, 66, 67, 70-

71, 73deaf children, 164

spoken words, 42, 46-47, 49, 50,51, 320, 321, 324

42 r'

storybooks, 62-63, 80syntax, 48, 53, 74, 75, 318, 332vocabulary, 47, 57, 63, 67, 75, 79,

107, 109word recognition, 50, 53, 62, 65-

67, 70-75, 79, 80, 111writing, 42, 57, 59-60, 69-70, 142,

149deaf children, 164

see also Preschool educationEarly childhood education, see

Emergent reading; First grade;Kindergarten; Preschooleducation; Primary grades;Second grade; Third grade;

Early Childhood Environment Rating,148

Early Intervention in Reading, 262Early language impairments, 5, 103,

104-108, 132, 163infants, 155, 160preventive interventions, 137, 163,

165-166Early Literacy Project, 269-270Economic factors, 98

literacy as economic goal, 1, 17-19see also Cost factors; Employment

and unemployment; Funding;Poverty

Elementary and Secondary EducationAct, 227-229, 263-264, 305

Embedded phonics instruction, 199,201-202, 204-206

Emergent reading, 69, 81, 261teacher education, 288, 296, 297,

331, 332see also Pretend reading

Emergent writing, 42, 57, 59-60, 69-70,81, 141, 149, 168, 171, 310

kindergarten, 183-184, 188, 189,191

teacher education on, 288, 296,297, 330, 331, 332

see also Invented spellingEmployment and unemployment, 20,

316criterion-referenced testing, 96

INDEX 411

teachers, 331salaries, 280, 300, 302

England, 76English as a second language

alphabetic principle, 157, 324cultural factors, 29, 123, 340first grade, 236immersion programs, 235-236, 236kindergarten, 28, 181, 236late-exit programs, 236phonology, 11, 27-28, 324-325poor persons, 28, 123, 155-156preventive interventions, 137reading comprehension, general,

236-237recommendations, 10-11, 324-325,

328, 339-340retention in grade, 267risk factors associated with, 5, 18,

19, 27-30, 123, 131, 156-158school-based factors, 227, 233-238,

246, 333second grade, 236socioeconomic status, 235syntax, 11, 325, 340teacher education, 296, 297-299,

330, 332theoretical issues, 237-238transfer of skills, 236-237tutoring, 260vocabulary development, 11, 325word recognition, 236-237see also Bilingual education; Spanish

and Spanish speakersErikson Institute, 281Error detection

by child, 51, 63, 81, 83, 169, 195,213, 223, 237, 322, 323

nonstandard dialect studentsand, 124, 241-242

Ethnic groups, see Minority groupsEtymology, 23Evaluation, 336-337

performance-based, 199school-based factors, 27textbooks, 304

see also Research methodology;Screening and identification;Standards; Tests and testing

Even Start Family Literacy Program,146, 155

Explicit instruction, general, 11, 172-225 (passim), 322, 323

first grade, 198, 208kindergarten, 177, 178-194, 250teacher education on, 287see also specific methods

F

Families, 100, 277age factors affecting learning, 122,

128book reading, 121, 139, 145, 263early childhood development, 57,

69, 139, 145-147, 171educational level of, 119literacy environment, general, 121-

122, 123, 138, 139, 142, 143narrative comprehension, 139, 143preschool education, 119-128

(passim)risk factors, 86, 100, 103, 119-128,

158, 159siblings, 119socioeconomic status, 31, 119, 121,

125-127teacher education, 297verbal interaction opportunities,

121, 122-123, 127, 139-141,143, 171

see also ParentsFederal government, 2, 18, 275, 277,

305-306bilingual education, 18Goals 2000, 228-229, 300Office of Education, 173poverty programs, 97-98, 228-230

Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act, 227-229, 263-264, 305

423

412 INDEX

Head Start, 145, 148, 150, 155,156, 157, 175, 281, 305, 338

welfare reform, 320teacher education, 284, 289, 294,

306see also Legislation; terms

beginning "Department..."Fetal alcohol syndrome, 104Fingerpoint reading, 181, 188First grade, 5, 33, 79, 195

accomplishments of successfullearner, 81, 194-195

African Americans, 205alphabetic principle, 207basal reading, 198, 206-207, 208-

210big books, 196, 200, 203, 204capitalization, 81, 198class size, 230conceptual knowledge, 195consonants, 198, 202-203decoding, 173-174, 199, 206, 208,

209embedded phonics instruction, 199,

201-202, 204-206explicit instruction, general, 198,

208fluency, 206, 209frequency of reading, 195

rereading, 81, 195frustration level, 195, 322group reading, 196, 197, 200, 202independent reading, 194, 196, 197,

198, 209, 322instructional materials, 195-196invented spelling, 81, 195letter identification and mapping,

81, 198letter-sound relations, 81, 199,

200-204, 208, 322metalinguistic factors, 195, 204minorities, 205monitoring, reading comprehension,

81, 195motivation, 172, 198, 206oral reading, 81, 194, 206, 209paired reading, 196, 197

424

phonology, 81, 195, 199, 200-204,208, 262, 322

letter-sound relations, 81, 199,200-204, 208, 322

phonemic awareness, 194, 195,199, 206, 208

phonics, 174, 199, 201-204,205, 209

poverty, 205print media, 194, 322reading comprehension, general, 81,

195, 206, 209reciprocal teaching, 222rereading, 81, 195retention in grade, 267school restructuring, 232second-grade transition, teacher

assessment of, 211second-language speakers, 236sight words, 194, 322small-group instruction, 262-264sounds, 81, 195, 199, 200-204,

208, 262, 322letter-sound relations, 81, 199,

200-204, 208, 322spelling, 81, 194, 195, 197, 198,

201-204, 206syntax, 6, 321, 322, 343, 344teachers, 196-199, 207teaching methods, 172, 173, 177-

178, 194-210tutoring, 207, 260, 327vocabulary, 81, 203whole language instruction, 199-

201, 205-206word recognition, 194, 198, 204,

205-206, 262writing, 81, 196, 197, 198, 200,

204, 207, 209see also Primary grades, general

Fluency, 4, 6, 7, 33, 223early childhood development, 75-79first grade, 206, 209second grade, 82, 213, 214-216special education, 270third grade, 83, 213tutoring, 253, 259, 261

INDEX 413

see also Frustration level; Readingcomprehension; Wordrecognition

Follow Through, 175-177Foreign countries, 234

see also specific countriesForeign language speakers, see English

as a second language;Japanese

Fourth gradebasal reading, 214reading level requirements, 207,

210, 211slump, 78-79, 344word recognition, 214

French immersion programs, 235Frequency of reading, 3, 211, 314

first grade, 195first-third grades, 7, 324second grade, 211third-fourth grades, 214see also Practice; Rereading

Frustration levelfirst grade, 195, 322first-third grades, 8, 324second grade, 213

Funding, 18parent-child reading programs, 144,

147poor children, funding for, 227-230,

320; see also Elementary andSecondary Education Act;Head Start programs

G

Games, see Play-based instructionGender differences, 91, 116

retention in grade, 267Genetic factors, 24-25, 88, 91, 92, 119Goals 2000, 228-229, 300Government role, see Federal

government; Localgovernment; State government

Grammarearly childhood development, 48

nonstandard dialects, 238, 241teacher education, 298see also Syntax

Group care, 8-9, 57, 148-149, 150,161, 170, 277, 300

Group reading, 6first grade, 196, 197, 200, 202first-third grades, 6kindergarten, 188-189preschool, 148reciprocal teaching, 221special education, 270see also Small-group instruction

H

Hawaiian children, 243-245Head Start programs, 145, 148, 150,

155, 156, 157, 175, 281, 305,338

Health care professionals, 101, 158, 159see also Pediatricians

Health care services, 158-163Hearing impairments, 5, 16, 55, 89,

103, 104, 132, 133, 315, 319chronic otitis media, 103, 104, 161developmental factors, 164preventive interventions, 137, 159,

161, 163-165High-risk children, see Risk factorsHigh school, 20-21, 98, 316

preschool intervention and successin, 150, 343

socioeconomic status, 125vocabulary size, 48

High School and Beyond, 20High/Scope program, 167, 168-170Hispanic persons, see Spanish and

Spanish speakersHome environment, see Families;

ParentsHome Instruction Program for

Preschool Youngsters, 144Homework

first-third grades, 8, 324parental assistance, 128

42E BEST COPY AVAILABLE

414 INDEX

Hyperactivity disorder, see Attentiondeficits

Hypertension as analogy for readingdifficulty, 92-93

I

Identification of problems, seeScreening and identification

IEP (Individualized educationalprogram), see Tutors andtutoring

Immersion programs, 235-236Improving America's School Act, 228-

229Income, see Poverty; Socioeconomic

statusIndependent reading, 218

first grade, 194, 196, 197, 198,209, 322

first-third grades, 6, 8, 322, 323,324

oral reading, impact on, 219reciprocal teaching, 221second grade, 82, 211, 213, 214,

322-323teacher education, 296third grade, 213tutoring, Reading Recovery, 255see also Homework; Oral reading

Individual instruction, see Tutors andtutoring

Individuals with Disabilities EducationAct, 89, 269-269, 305

Infant Health Development Program,155

Infants, 155, 160Inference, 7

first grade, 195second-third grade, 222

Instructional materials, 2-3, 6, 11, 175,272, 300, 307, 333-334, 344

basal reading, 189case-based teacher education, 289-

290family environment, 121, 128

426

first grade, 195-196lack of, 26nonstandard dialects, 239-241school-based risk factors, 129see also Audiovisual presentations;

Book reading; Curriculardesign; Pictures; Publishers;Textbooks

Instructional methods, see Teachingmethods

Intelligence quotient, 24, 88, 94-95,106-107, 109, 116, 118, 150,318

reading disabilities, defined, 268-269

International dimension, see Foreigncountries; specific countries

International Reading Association, 317Interstate New Teacher Assessment

and Support Consortium, 295Interventions, 101, 247-274, 343-344

controversial, 271defined, 247older children, 247-248teacher education on, 287see also Preventive interventions;

Remedial interventions;Special education

Invented spelling, 7-8, 59, 70, 80, 168,272, 323

first grade, 81, 195tutoring, 259-260

Iowa, 88IQ, see Intelligence quotient

Japanese, 21

J

K

Kamehameha Early Education Project,244-245

Kentucky, 301

INDEX 415

Kindergarten, 111, 116-118, 136, 277accomplishments of successful

learner, 80, 179alphabetic principle, 80, 179, 183

184-189basal reading, 189-194book reading, 9, 80, 189, 323

big books, 181, 188, 189capitalization, 80class size, 178-179

student-teacher ratios, 9, 133,318-319

consonants, 188decoding, 188, 191, 251emergent writing, 183-184, 188,

189, 191explicit instruction, general, 177,

178-194, 250group reading, 188-189instructional strategies, 177, 178-

194, 250lack of, 79letter identification, 9, 80, 113-115,

180, 183, 185, 187, 188, 191,249-250, 322

motivation, 179multiple risk factors, 116-117oral reading, 80, 179-181, 188-189,

191phonology,

letter-sound relations, 80, 183,185, 187, 188, 191, 249, 250,251

phonemic awareness, 80, 179,187, 189, 191, 193

phonological awareness, 54, 112,151, 185-189, 192-193, 248-252

predicting, reading comprehension,80, 180-181

print media, 179, 180, 181, 188,189, 191, 322

real reading, 68recall, 80, 108-109, 118recommendations, 6, 9, 321-324retention/prekindergarten, 149, 266,

341-342

rhymes and rhyming, 80, 182, 187,191

risk factor analysis, 102, 113-118,151

screening, 9, 133, 318-319school-based factors, 130second-language speakers, 28, 181,

236semantics, 111sentences, 80, 111, 116, 118sight words, 182, 189sounds, 9

letter-sound relations, 80, 183,185, 187, 188, 191, 249, 250,251

spelling, 80, 187-188, 189spoken words, 80, 179, 186-187,

188state role, 190, 194storybooks, 179-180, 183, 188student-teacher ratios, 9, 133, 318-

319syllables, 182, 185syntax, 111teachers, 180-181, 192verbal memory, 108-110, 323vocabulary skills, 80, 109word recognition, 180, 181-182,

188, 189, 249, 251, 322writing, 183-184, 188, 189, 191

Kinesiology, 271

L

Language development, general, 45,46-50, 73, 75-76, 82, 106-108, 319

impairments, 5, 103, 104-108, 163,165-166

preventive interventions, 137,163, 165-166

parental involvement, 142, 145speech impairments, 105, 165, 315teacher qualifications involving, 282see also Early childhood

development; Early language

427.

416 INDEX

impairments; Meta linguisticfactors

Language-minority children, seeEnglish as a second language

Language-rich environments, 69, 100,142, 199

Language skills, general, 108-110, 132,315, 317, 319, 323

first grade, 195K-3, 176, 191, 284, 285preschool, 9, 108-109, 111, 116,

137, 147-148, 282teacher education, 282, 284, 285,

330see also specific skills

Lead poisoning, 104Learning disabilities, 3, 18, 88-91

attention deficits, 103, 105decoding, 254reading disabilities defined, 268statistics on, 89see also Cognitive deficits; Dyslexia;

Special educationLearning to Read/Reading to Learn,

306Learning to Read: The Great Debate,

173-174LEAs, see Local governmentLegislation

Americans with Disabilities Act, 18Elementary and Secondary

Education Act, 227-229, 263-264, 305

Improving America's School Act,228-229

Individuals with DisabilitiesEducation Act, 89, 268-269,305

state action, 302Letter identification and mapping, 44,

101, 110, 113, 137, 215age factors, general, 71capitalization, letters, 80, 81, 198early childhood development, 57,

58, 59, 60, 65, 70, 71-72,116, 319

deaf children, 164

428

first grade, 81, 198first-third grades, 6, 7, 321

sound-letter relations, 81, 199,200-204, 208, 322

kindergarten, 9, 113-115, 180, 249-250, 322

sound-letter relations, 80, 183,185, 187, 188, 191, 249, 250,251

parental behavior, 142second grade, 82sound-letter relations, 7, 22-23, 44,

71-72, 80, 81, 82, 112, 115,152-153, 154, 223, 316

first grade, 81, 199, 200-204,208, 322

kindergarten, 80, 183, 185, 187,188, 191, 249, 250, 251

nonstandard dialects, 27-28,124, 238-239

school restructuring, 232second grade, 82, 212, 322-323teacher education, 285, 294-295third grade, 83tutoring, 259, 261

testing for, 115tutoring, 255, 259, 261see also Alphabetic principle;

Capitalization, lettersLibraries and librarians, 8, 324, 327

school, 11, 130state-level action, 300

Limited-proficiency English, seeEnglish as a second language

Listening comprehension, 64-65, 280,332

see also Oral readingLiteracy, general

ability range, 41-42deaf children, 164defined, 42economic goals, 1, 17-19enjoyment, source of, 33, 138, 139,

142, 143, 171family environment, 121-122, 123,

138, 139, 142, 143minority groups' views on, 29-30

INDEX 417

preschool, 282societal goals, 1, 17-20, 29-30, 33-

34, 156, 170, 292, 324-325statistics on, 19-20, 98teacher education on, 282, 284

Local factors, general, 2, 8, 86, 128-130, 277, 324, 331

curricular design, 304-305socioeconomic status, 126see also Rural areas; School-based

factors; Urban areasLocal government, 2, 18, 275, 277

teachers, 305textbooks, 304

Local risk factors, 1-3, 100, 128-130,304-305

see also School-based factorsLongitudinal studies, 20

early childhood development, 72interventions, 248, 267preschool education, 146, 156risk factors, 87-88, 90, 97-98, 103,

105, 113, 118, 121-122school-based factors, 228see also High School and Beyond;

National Assessment ofEducational Progress

Louisiana, 129

M

Mapping letters, see Letteridentification and mapping

Maryland School PerformanceAssessment Program, 220

Massachusetts, 160Media influences, 2, 275, 310-312,

318, 319, 327controversial interventions, 271early childhood development, 57see also Television

Medical professionals, see Health careprofessionals

Memory, 75, 108-109, 116, 322phonological awareness and, 112preschool children, 108-109

sentences, 108-109, 132special education, 166, 169see also Automaticity; Recall; Sight

wordsMental retardation, see Cognitive

deficits; Special educationMetacognition

defined, 45preventive interventions, 278reading comprehension and, 64, 76,

220-223teacher education, 286teaching methods, 220-223

Metalinguistic factors, 45, 46, 49-50,53, 106-108, 111-112, 217,319, 323

age factors, general, 50defined, 45first grade, 195, 204tutoring, Reading Recovery, 258see also Phonology

Methodology, see Researchmethodology

Middle school, 343socioeconomic status, 125Success For All, 232

Minority groups, 4, 17-18, 19, 27-30,97-98, 242-245, 315, 316

computer-assisted instruction, 266discrimination against, 123English as a second language,

general, 123first grade, 205Hawaiian children, 243-245literacy, views on, 29-30poverty affecting, 29-30preventive interventions, 30, 136remedial interventions, 30retention in grade, 267see also African Americans; Cultural

factors; English as a secondlanguage; Spanish andSpanish speakers

Miscue analysis, 73Mississippi, 302Models and modeling

basic skills, 175-176

420

418 INDEX

categorical models of risk, 88-91, 102children's, 44-45, 57dimensional models of risk, 91-93,

102hypertension as analogy for reading

difficulty, 92-93parental, 142reading comprehension, 62-63, 71reading difficulties/risk factors, 87-

96, 98-99, 102, 310school-wide restructuring, 326screening and identification, 87-96,

98-99special education, 89, 167spelling development, 44-45, 72teacher in-service education, 291-

292word recognition, 66

Monitoring, 4, 6, 7, 223, 314, 344early childhood development, 63-

64, 76, 77error detection, 51, 63, 81, 83, 169,

195, 213, 223, 237, 322, 323first grade, 81, 195reciprocal teaching, 221second-third grades, 222

Morphology, 23, 153, 341, 343defined, 22, 46early childhood development, 73-

74, 110, 111, 319teacher education, 330

Motivation and attitude, 4, 5, 100,147, 278, 315, 316

administrative personnel, 26awards, public, 130, 306basic skills models, 175dyslexia and, 89family environment, 121

parental attitudes, 138, 139,142, 146, 162, 219

fear of school, 147first grade, 172, 198, 206kindergarten, 179limited-proficiency English speakers,

29literacy as societal goal, 1, 17-20,

29-30, 33, 142, 170

430

literacy as source of enjoyment, 33,138, 139, 142, 143, 171

preschool children, 8, 138, 139,142, 143, 146, 147

special education, 167-170teachers, toward students, 26, 124,

229, 288, 331, 332see also Frustration level

Motor skills, 116, 280, 332kinesiology, 271

N

NAEP, see National Assessment ofEducational Progress

Naming, 113, 115, 116, 132, 280, 332serial naming, 109-111, 118see also Letter identification and

mappingNarrative comprehension, 116, 143

family environment, 139, 143language-impaired children, 165phonological awareness and, 112preschool education, 149

National Assessment of EducationalProgress, 88, 96-97, 302

socioeconomic status, 126-127National Association for the Education

of Young Children, 282, 317National Association of Family Day

Care, 282National Board for Professional

Teaching Standards, 296,301-302

National Commission on Teaching andAmerica's Future, 284, 289

National Council for the Accreditationof Teacher Education, 294-295

National Education Association, 317National Education Longitudinal

Study, 20National Evaluation Information

System, 146National Governors Association, 282,

299National Institutes of Health, 306

INDEX 419

National Longitudinal Survey ofYouth, 156

National Reading Research Center, 196National Science Foundation, 299, 306Native Americans, 243-245, 316Netherlands, 236-237Neurology and neuroscience, 24-25, 271Nevada, 304New Jersey, 304New Zealand, 90, 255Non-English speakers, see English as a

second languageNonstandard dialects, see DialectsNorm-referenced testing, 95-96, 330North Carolina, 148, 302Norway, 186Numeracy skills, 44, 101, 150Nutrition, 103-104, 158, 160, 271

0Office of Education, 173Ohio, 301, 302Onset-rime, 51, 185, 206, 259Oral reading

first grade, 81, 194, 206, 209first-third grades, 6, 83independent reading, impact on,

219kindergarten, 80, 179-181, 188-

189, 191miscue analysis, 73parent-child, 121, 128, 142-143,

144-145, 147, 148, 166, 171,180, 218-219, 310, 317, 319,324

reciprocal teaching, 221second grade, 215-216small-group instruction, 263speech impairments, 105, 165, 315third grade, 83waiting room volunteers, 162see also Group reading; Paired

readingOregon, 301Orthography, see Spelling

Otitis media, 103, 104, 161Outlier schools, 128-129, 130Outreach, 2, 32

see also Conferences

P

Paired readingfirst grade, 196, 197first-third grades, 6, 322parent-child, 121, 128, 142-143,

144-145, 147, 148, 166, 171,180, 218-219, 310, 317, 319,324

preschool education, 142-143, 144-145, 148, 171

school restructuring, 232second grade, 215special education, 270

Parents, 1, 2, 8, 9, 57, 58, 31, 32, 101,128, 132, 136, 138-147, 171

African American, 31, 241age of child as factor, 128attitudes of, 138, 139, 142, 146,

162, 219audiovisual presentations for, 9, 319cognitive skills, parental

involvement, 142curricular design, 143-144education to teach children, 143-

147, 319federal action, 306health care providers and, 158language development, general, 142,

145language-impaired children, 166letter identification and mapping,

142models of, 142monitoring of child's reading, 128,

263, 324pre/perinatal programs, 160preventive interventions, 138-147print media, 139, 142, 145questioning of children by, 139,

140-141, 143, 144-145

431BEST COPY AVAILABLE

420 INDEX

reading difficulties, parents with, 5,119-121, 127, 132, 137, 315,318

reading to children by, 121, 128,142-143, 144-145, 147, 148,166, 171, 180, 218-219, 310,317, 319, 324

teacher collaboration, 297, 344vocabulary development, 139, 319see also Families

Parents as Teachers program, 144Partner reading, see Paired readingPatterned books, see Predictable booksPediatricians, 9, 133, 158, 159, 162-

163, 318, 319Phonemic awareness, 15, 112, 149,

176, 223, 315, 321, 323age factors, general, 53, 151-154alphabetic principle, 47, 153-154,

248, 285, 314defined, 52early childhood development, 47,

51-57, 60, 71-73, 80, 81first grade, 194, 195, 199, 206, 208invented spelling and, 195kindergarten, 80, 179, 187, 189,

191, 193nonstandard dialects, 240preschool education, 152-154reading disabled children, 252-254second grade, 212small-group instruction, 263state action, 302teacher education, 296, 298tutoring, 258, 259

Phonetic cue reading, 71Phonics, 52, 55, 56, 81, 173-174

first grade, 174, 199, 201-204, 205,209

second grade, 205-206state action, 302teacher education, 296tutoring, 259, 260vocabulary and, 173word recognition and, 173, 259

Phonological awareness, 23, 107, 110,111-112, 116, 118, 132, 319,320, 321

age factors, general, 53, 151-154alliteration, 53, 149, 187computer-assisted instruction, 265deaf children, 164defined, 52, 248early childhood development, 51-

57, 60, 151-154experimental studies, 152-153, 249-

250, 252-253language-impaired children, 166kindergarten, 54, 112, 151, 185-

189, 192-193, 248-252interventions, 248-251memory and, 112narrative comprehension and, 112preschool education, 151-155preventive interventions, 151, 249-

251reading disabled children, 252-254recall and, 112small-group instruction, 250, 252storybooks, 112teacher education, 284, 288, 298,

330theory on, 52, 54, 248see also Rhymes and rhyming

Phonological decoding, see DecodingPhonological sensitivity, 71-73, 111-

112, 137, 186, 188, 317Phonology, 5, 6, 7, 9, 15, 54-55, 66

alliteration, 53, 149, 187defined, 22, 46, 52early language development, 46-47,

51-57, 59, 60, 332first grade, 81, 195, 199, 200-204,

208, 262, 322letter-sound relations, 7, 22-23, 44,

71-72, 80, 81, 82, 112, 115,152-153, 154, 223, 316

first grade, 81, 199, 200-204,208, 322

kindergarten, 80, 183, 185, 187,188, 191, 249, 250, 251

nonstandard dialects, 27-28,124, 238-239

school restructuring, 232second grade, 82, 212, 322-323teacher education, 285, 294-295

INDEX 421

third grade, 83tutoring, 259, 261see also Decoding

neurological research, 24nonstandard dialects, 24, 27-28,

124, 238-239second-language speakers, 11, 27-

28, 324-325speech discrimination, general, 52,

54-55, 56spelling relations, general, 3, 22-23,

80-83, 194, 195, 198, 298,322, 330, 343

teacher education, 280, 298, 330,332

tutoring, 255, 259letter-sound relations, 259, 261phonemic awareness, 258, 259phonics, 259, 260

see also Dialects; Hearingimpairments; Phonemicawareness; Phonologicalawareness; Phonologicalsensitivity; Rhymes andRhyming; Spoken words

Piaget, Jean, 167Pictures, 59, 69, 109, 142, 152, 162,

180, 200, 262, 323see also Rebus books

Play-based instruction, 59, 183-184,188, 189-190, 191, 223, 306,320, 321

see also Dramatic play; Rhymes andrhyming; Word games

Poems, see Rhymes and rhymingPolitical factors

curricular ideologies, 225limited-proficiency English speakers,

29, 123state-level, 299, 304textbooks, 304

Poverty, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18-19, 30-31,97-98, 119, 125-127, 131,315, 327-328

African Americans, 155-156book reading, 148class size, 229

43

computer-assisted instruction, 266early childhood development, 58;

see also "preschool" infrafederal programs, 97-98, 230

Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act, 227-229, 263-264, 305

Head Start, 145, 148, 150, 155,156, 157, 175, 281, 305, 338

welfare reform, 320first grade, 205Hispanics, 123, 155-156infant nutrition, 160limited-proficiency English speakers,

28, 123, 155-156minority status and, 29-30narrative comprehension, 143nonstandard dialect speakers and,

124preschool education, 8-9, 147, 150,

154, 155, 282, 320Head Start programs, 145, 148,

150, 155, 156, 157, 175, 281,305, 338

reciprocal teaching, 222retention in grade, 267school-based factors, 26, 227-230second grade, 205-206, 214-216teacher education, 296tutoring, 260welfare reform, 320

Practice, 75, 196, 217, 223, 314see Frequency of reading;

Homework; RereadingPracticum techniques, teacher

education, 290Pragmatics, 49

defined, 46, 49teacher education on, 288

Predictable books, 182Predicting, reading comprehension

first grade, 195first-third grades, 6, 7, 322, 323kindergarten, 80, 180-181school restructuring, 232second-third grades, 222

422 INDEX

Predictors of reading difficulties, seealso Risk factors

Predictors of successful readingachievement, 100

Preschool education, 19, 33, 42-84,108-119, 137-171, 277, 317-321, 338

cognitive skills, general, 9, 148, 280cultural factors, 148deaf children, 164family environment, 119-128

(passim)group reading, 148Head Start, 145, 148, 150, 155,

156, 157, 175, 281, 305, 338high school, preschool interventions

and success in, 150, 343lack of, 4, 5, 79language skills, general, 9, 108-109,

111, 116, 137, 147-148, 282literacy, general, 282longitudinal studies, 146, 156motivation, 8, 138, 139, 142, 143,

146, 147narrative comprehension, 149paired reading, 142-143, 144-145,

148, 171phonemic awareness, 152-154phonological awareness, 151-155poverty, 8-9, 147, 150, 154, 155,

282, 320Head Start programs, 145, 148,

150, 155, 156, 157, 175, 281,305, 338

printawareness of, 139, 164, 165, 170concepts of, 139, 145, 149, 164,

165recommendations, 5-6, 8-9, 317-

321, 338retention in grade, prevention, 149,

150risk factors, 8, 108-119, 317-320

screening, 9, 318-319social development, 150, 168special education, 150, 166-170spoken language, 108state-level action, 277, 282, 300

431

teacher education, 10, 279-283,331-332

verbal memory, 108-109vocabulary, 107, 109-111, 148,

170, 280, 318, 319, 320, 321see also Early childhood

development; Families; HeadStart programs; Parents;Preventive interventions

Pretend reading, 33, 58, 59, 69, 81Preventive interventions, 2, 6, 16, 85,

135-171, 277-278, 316, 317-321, 338

alphabetic principle, 278cultural factors, 136, 148defined, 16, 159, 316early language impairments, 137,

163, 165-166Head Start, 145, 157hearing impaired children, 137,

159, 161, 163-165metacognition, 278minority groups, 30, 136multicomponent, 135parental, 138-147phonological awareness, 151, 249-

251research methodology, 135-136retention in grade, prevention, 149,

150school-based factors, 136, 137second-language speakers, 137socioeconomic status and, 136, 137special education, 150, 166-170state action, 302teacher education, 10, 287, 332writing, 278

Primary grades, general, 6-7, 19, 32alphabetic principle, 6, 7, 321comprehension skills, 6-7, 210-211conceptual knowledge, 6, 323curricular design, 7, 323frequency of reading, 7, 324frustration level, 8, 324group reading, 6homework, 8, 324independent reading, 6, 8, 322, 323,

324

INDEX 423

language skills, 176, 191, 284, 285letter identification and mapping, 6,

7, 321sound-letter relations, 81, 199,

200-204, 208, 322listening/reading skills, 64-65oral reading, 6, 83paired reading, 6, 322predicting, reading comprehension,

6, 7, 322, 333preschool and outcomes in, 149reading comprehension, 6-7, 81, 82,

83, 322, 323recommendations for, 6-8, 10 11,

321-324rereading, 7, 8, 81, 324rhetorical structures, 6, 322, 324second-language speakers, 28spelling, 6, 7-8, 321, 323-324, 343state-level action, 300summarizing, reading compre-

hension, 6, 7, 322, 323syntax, 6, 321, 322, 343, 344teacher education, 10, 283-299,

329-331vocabulary size, 6, 48, 321, 322, 344writing, 6, 7, 285, 321-322see also First grade; Kindergarten;

Second grade; Third gradePrimary prevention, see Preventive

interventionsPrincipals, 130Print media, 3, 139, 218-219

awareness of, 9, 318, 321early childhood development, 59-

60, 70-71, 80kindergarten, 179, 180, 181,

188, 191, 322preschool education, 139, 164,

165, 170concepts of, 259, 315, 318, 319-

321, 322, 323, 332deaf children, 164early childhood development, 45,

69preschool education, 139, 145,

149, 164, 165

risk factors regarding, 110, 115,116

second/third grades, 218, 223first grade, 194, 322language-impaired children, 165-166parental behavior, 139, 142, 145reading for meaning, 81, 314small-group instruction, 263teacher education on, 288, 332see also Letter identification and

mappingPrizes, see Awards and prizesProblem identification, see Screening

and identificationProblem-solving activities

for children, 142, 166, 169for teachers, 290

Professional education anddevelopment, 9-10

day care providers, 149principals' involvement, 130see also Teacher education

Professionals, 1-2, 32day care providers, 149see also Health care professionals;

Libraries and librarians;Principals; Publishers;Specialists; Teachers

Project Read, 270Prospects study, 97-98, 228Psychological factors, 174

controversial interventions, 271deaf children, 165severe pathologies, 104teacher education, 285, 286, 287,

288, 292see also Motivation and attitude

Public education, 310-312, 318, 319see also Pediatricians; Social

workers; Speech-languagetherapists

Publishers, 1, 2, 32, 275, 306-310,333-334

standards, 300see also Instructional materials;

TextbooksPunctuation, 81

4 3'v

424 INDEX

R

Race-ethnicity, see Minority groupsReach Out and Read, 159, 162Readiness, see Reading readinessReading aloud, see Oral readingReading comprehension, general, 3, 4,

173, 315adults, 64-65conceptual knowledge and, 219-220early childhood development, 60,

62-65, 75-78first grade, 81, 195, 206, 209first-third grades, 6-7, 81, 82, 83,

322, 323kindergarten, 80, 180-181listening comprehension and, 64-65metacognition and, 64, 76, 220-223models of, 62-63, 71neuroscience on, 24print exposure and, 218-219reciprocal teaching, 221-222school restructuring, 232second grade, 82, 213, 214-215, 222second-language speakers, 236-237state action, 302teacher education, general, 296, 330third grade, 83, 213, 219-220, 222tutoring, Reading Recovery, 258vocabulary and, 63, 67, 216-219, 220see also Fluency; Monitoring;

Narrative comprehension;Predicting, readingcomprehension; Recall;Summarizing

Reading for meaning, 81, 314, 320,324

Reading levelfirst-third grades, 7, 21high school graduation and, 21reading disabilities, defined, 268-269second grade, 211-212special education, results, 270

Reading lists, see Summer reading listsReading One-One, 260-262Reading readiness, 113, 116, 261Reading Recovery program, 250, 253,

255-258

436

Reading specialists, 12, 248, 296, 298,327, 333

"Real reading," 15-16, 42, 68, 81,181, 232

Rebus books, 182, 204Recall, 82, 132, 319

kindergarten, 80, 108-109, 118phonological awareness, 112second grade, 82, 213third grade, 213see also Frustration level

Reciprocal teaching, 139, 221-222Remedial interventions, 2, 3, 12, 24, 278

defined, 16dyslexia, 271, 313minority groups, 30nonstandard dialects, 240teacher education on, 287, 298Title I, 228see also Special education; Tutors

and tutoringRepeating (grade level), see Retention

in gradeRereading, 214

first grade, 81, 195first-third grades, 7, 8, 81, 324second grade, 82third-fourth grades, 214tutoring, Reading Recovery, 255

Research methodology, 33, 34-39, 176,256-257

classificatory analysis, 117correlational studies, general, 39,

101-103, 135, 178error of measurement, 115prevention efforts, 135-136prospective analyses, 37-38, 90systematic replication, 34-35see also Models and modeling

Retardation, see Cognitive deficits;Special education

Retention in grade, 248, 266-267, 341-342

first grade, 267kindergarten, 149, 266, 341-342minority groups/poor persons, 267preschool prevention, 149, 150

INDEX 425

Retrospective studies, general, 37Rhetorical structures

first grade, 195first-third grades, 6, 322, 324teacher education, 280, 285, 288

Rhymes and rhyming, 51, 53, 143,149, 151, 278, 320, 321

first grade, 203kindergarten, 80, 182, 187, 191

Riddles, 223Rime, see Onset-rimeRisk factors, 1, 2, 4-5, 11, 16, 85-86,

100-133, 317-319categorical models of, 88-91, 102cost of assessment, 102, 132, 133dimensional models, 91-93, 102familial, 86, 100, 103, 119-128,

158, 159parents with reading difficulties,

5, 119-121, 127, 132, 137,315, 318

kindergarten, 102, 113-118, 151local factors, 1-3, 100, 128-130,

304-305longitudinal studies, 87-88, 90, 97-

98, 103, 105, 113, 118, 121-122

media information about, 310models of, 87-96, 98-99, 102, 310multiple, 116-119, 123, 125, 127,

131, 230, 313-314nature of, general, 85-86parents with reading difficulties, 5,

119-121, 127, 132, 137, 315,318

preschool, 8, 9, 108-119, 317-320print, concepts of, 110, 115, 116second-language speakers, 5, 18, 19,

27-30, 123, 131, 156-158syntax, 107, 110teacher education, poor training,

26, 289, 291see also Interventions; School-based

factors; Screening andidentification; specific riskfactors

Rural areas, 98, 290, 315

S

School-based factors, 11, 25-27, 86,100, 103, 128-130, 131, 226-246, 304-305, 315, 337-338

African Americans, 227, 238-242audiovisual presentations, 130basal reading, 231big books, 231-232cultural factors, 68, 226, 227, 242-

245curriculum casualties, 25-26decoding, 232dialects, nonstandard, 227, 238-242libraries, 11, 130Hispanics, 123institutional accreditation, 293-295,

300, 301-302kindergarten, 130outlier schools, 128-129, 130paired reading, 232poverty, 26, 227-230preventive interventions, 136, 137principals, 130school-wide restructuring, 11, 230-

233, 272, 325-326, 338second-language speakers, 227,

233-238, 246, 333socioeconomic status, 126, 128-129specialists, use of, 333teacher education vs, 288time-on-task rates, see Time-on-task

ratesuniversity partnerships, 293vocabulary development, 231, 232see also Class size; Student-teacher

ratios; TeachersScreening and identification, 2, 85,

101-133, 159, 278cost of, 102, 132, 133deaf children, 164-165disabilities, 9, 132-133, 158, 159,

162-163, 318, 319error detection by child's monitor,

72-73, 76, 213kindergarten, 9, 133, 318-319miscue analysis, 73

43

426 INDEX

models of, 87-96, 98-99pediatricians, 9, 133, 158, 159,

162-163, 318, 319preschool/kindergarten, 9, 318-319prevalence, general, 96-99research agenda, 336, 342, 344secondary symptoms, 103, 132second grade, 211-212state action, 302teacher education for, 279, 290,

296, 297, 298, 330, 332see also Risk factors

Secondary education, see High schoolSecondary prevention, see Remedial

interventionsSecondary symptoms, 103, 132Second grade, 82, 210-211

accomplishments required, 82, 210-211

alphabetic principle, 212automaticity, 210basal reading, 212, 215book reading, 211decoding, 82direct code instruction, 205-206fluency, 82, 213, 214-216frequency of reading, 211frustration level, 213independent reading, 82, 211, 213,

214, 322-323letter identification, 82letter-sound relations, 82, 212, 322-

323monitoring, 222oral reading, 215-216paired reading, 215phonemic awareness, 212phonics, 205-206poverty, 205-206, 214-216print, concepts of, 218, 223reading comprehension, general, 82,

213, 214-215, 222reciprocal teaching, 222rereading, 82school restructuring, 232screening and identification, 211-

212

4 3 E;

second-language speakers, 236socioeconomic status, 214-216spelling, 82, 212teachers, 211-212teaching methods, 207-223vocabulary, 215vowels, 212whole language instruction, 205-

206word recognition, 205-206, 212-

213, 322-323writing, 82see also Primary grades, general

Second-language speakers, see Englishas a second language

Semantics, 321, 340, 343age factors, 53, 77, 83comprehension and word

knowledge, 63, 77deaf children, 164defined, 46kindergarten, 111storybook reading, 143teacher education on, 288vocabulary development and, 48word form changes, 73

Sentences, 7early childhood development, 48-

49, 50, 108first grade, 81kindergarten, 80, 111, 116, 118small-group instruction, 263tutoring, Reading Recovery, 255verbal memory, 108-109, 132see also Grammar; Syntax

Serial naming, 109-111, 118SES, see Socioeconomic statusSesame Street, 57, 59, 278, 311-312Sex differences, see Gender differencesShared reading, see Group reading;

Paired readingSiblings, 119Sight words, 6

deaf children, 164first grade, 194, 322kindergarten, 182, 189tutoring, 259

INDEX 427

Small-group instruction, 12, 148, 192,228, 231, 248, 262-264

phonological awareness, 250, 252see also Group reading

Social development, 9, 15, 43, 44, 158first grade, 262-264listening skills, 64-65literacy as societal goal, 1, 17-20,

29-30, 33-34, 156, 170, 292,324-325

preschool intervention, 150, 168special education, 168teacher education, 285, 286, 292word recognition, 262, 263see also Pragmatics

Social workers, 9, 318Socioeconomic status, 25, 27, 29-31,

94, 125-127defined, 127educational achievement and, 21family factors and, 31, 119, 121,

125-127phonics, 173preventive interventions, 136, 137school-based factors, 227second grade, 214-216second-language speakers, 235vocabulary size and, 47see also Poverty

Sounds, see PhonologySpace, concepts of, 280, 332Spanish and Spanish speakers, 23, 27,

28-29, 123, 127, 156-158,238, 316

first grade, 205invented spelling, 59kindergarten, 181NAEP, 97poor persons, 123, 155-156

Special education, 89-90, 166-170,248, 268-271

curricular design, 167-170, 269-270fluency, 270group reading, 270memory, 166, 169models of, 89, 167motivation, 167-170paired reading, 270

preschool preventive measures, 150,166-170

referral for, 27social development, 168storybooks, 168teachers, 167-168, 196, 269, 296-

299, 333word recognition, 270

Specialists, 10, 248, 328see also Pediatricians; Reading

specialists; Speech-languagetherapists; Teachers

Special Strategies studies, 98Speech, see Listening comprehension;

Oral reading; Phonology;Spoken words

Speech impairments, 105, 165, 315Speech-language therapists, 9, 158-

159, 164, 165, 318, 333see also Reading specialists

Speech sounds, see PhonologySpelling, 223, 314

defined, 22early childhood development, 42,

43-44, 60, 66, 67, 70-71, 73deaf children, 164

first grade, 81, 194, 195, 197, 198,201-204, 206

first-third grades, 6, 7-8, 321, 323-324, 343

kindergarten, 80, 187-188, 189models of development, 44-45, 72nonstandard dialects, 238, 341phonological considerations,

general, 3, 22-23, 80-83, 194,195, 198, 298, 322, 330, 343

second grade, 82, 212teacher education, 296, 298, 330third grade, 83tutoring, 259, 260vocabulary, 6, 321, 322, 344see also Invented spelling;

Morphology; PhonicsSpoken words, 2, 7, 315

early language development, 42, 46-47, 49, 50, 51, 320, 321, 324

kindergarten, 80, 179, 186-187, 188school entry predictors, 108-109

43e

428

speech impairments, 105structure of, 3, 4, 314teacher education on, 288see also Alphabetic principle;

Hearing impairments;Listening comprehension;Oral reading; Phonemicawareness; Phonologicalawareness; Phonology

Standardscriterion vs norm referencing, 95-96Head Start, 282institutional accreditation, 293-295,

300, 301-302national tests, 94; see also specific

testspublishers, 300research agenda, 334-335state-level actions, 291, 292-293,

295-296, 299, 300-304, 307teacher education, 282, 291, 293-

296, 302see also Intelligence quotient

State government, 2, 18, 275, 277,299-304, 317-318

basal programs, 190curricular design, 300-301, 302, 304disabilities, 282first-third grades, 300kindergarten, 190, 194legislation, 302libraries, 300phonics, 302politics and, 299, 304preschool education, 277, 282, 300preventive interventions, general, 302screening and identification, 302standards, 291, 292-293, 295-296,

299, 300-304, 307teacher certification/standards, 282,

291, 292-293, 295-296, 299,301-302

textbooks, 300, 302-304, 307Storybooks

computer-assisted, 264decoding, 143

44t

INDEX

early childhood development,general, 62-63, 80

kindergarten, 179-180, 183, 188parent-child reading, 142-143, 145phonological awareness, 112special education, 168see also Big books

Storytelling, 200-201, 231, 232, 244,246, 262, 280, 281, 318, 332

Student-teacher ratios, 11, 230, 231,256, 282, 328

kindergarten, 178-179see also Class size; Small-group

instruction; Tutors andtutoring

Success For All, 230-233Summarizing

first grade, 195first-third grades, 6, 7, 322, 323school restructuring, 232third grade, 83

Summer reading lists, 8, 324Sweden, 236Syllables, 15, 21-22, 51, 54

African American dialect, 239defined, 22first grade, 81kindergarten, 182, 185onset-rime, 51, 185, 206, 259rebus books, 182

Syntaxearly childhood development, 48,

53, 74, 75, 318, 332first-third grades, 6, 321, 322, 343,

344kindergarten, 111school-entry predictors, 107, 110second-language speakers, 11, 325,

340teacher education, 280, 288, 332

T

Talking books, 264Teacher aids, 263

INDEX 429

Teacher certification, 282, 291, 292-293, 295-296, 301-302

Teacher education, 9-10, 11, 273, 278-299, 327, 329-331

alphabetic principle, 285, 288, 294-295, 296, 330

audiovisual presentations, 289-290automaticity, 285bilingual education, 285, 288, 297-

298, 330case-based instruction, 289-290cognitive skills, 280, 282cultural factors, 299curricular design, 279-282, 294,

296, 330emergent literary skills, 288, 296,

297, 330, 331, 332explicit instruction, 287families, 297federal action, 284, 289, 294, 306grammar, 298group education, 292-293independent reading, 296institutional accreditation, 293-295,

300, 301-302K-3, 10, 283-299, 329-331language skills, general, 282, 284,

285, 330letter-sound relations, 285, 294-295literacy, general, 282, 284metacognition, 286models of, 291-292morphology, 330phonology, 280, 298, 330, 332

letter-sound relations, 285, 294-295

phonemic awareness, 296, 298phonics, 296phonological awareness, 284,

288, 298, 330poor training as risk factor, 26,

289, 291poverty as risk factor, 296pragmatics, 288preschool teachers, 279-283, 331-332preventive interventions, 10, 287, 332principals' involvement, 130

print media, general, 288, 332problem-solving activities, 290psychological factors, about, 285,

286, 287, 288, 292reading comprehension, general,

296, 330remedial education, about, 287, 298rhetorical structures, about, 280,

285, 288screening and identification, about,

279, 290, 296, 297, 298, 330,332

second-language speakers, teachersof, 296, 297-299, 330, 332

semantics, 288social development, 285, 286, 292special education, 269spelling, 296, 298, 330spoken words, 288standards, 282, 291, 293-296, 302syntax, 280, 288, 332theoretical issues, 292, 298, 329time-on-task rates, 291, 329tutoring, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260,

261, 273verbal abilities, general, 285, 288vocabulary, 280, 332word recognition, 285, 330writing, 280, 285, 296, 298see also Teacher certification

Teachers, 1, 2-3, 32, 101attitudes of, 26, 124, 229, 288, 331,

332awards for, 306bilingual, 136child-teacher interaction, 26, 124,

130, 177, 229, 230employment issues, 331

salaries, 280, 300, 302first grade, 196-199, 207kindergarten, 180-181, 192local government action, 305nonstandard dialect students and,

124, 241-242parent educators, 143principals' involvement with, 130publishers relations with, 307-309

441

430 INDEX

school-based risk factors, 129-130second grade, 211-212special education, 167-168, 196,

269, 296-299, 333state-level action, 282, 291, 292-

293, 295-296, 299, 301-302see also Student-teacher ratios;

Tutors and tutoringTeaching materials, see Instructional

materialsTeaching methods, 2, 3, 25-27, 32-33,

100, 172-178, 285, 314-315computer-assisted instruction, 59,

188, 248, 252-253, 264-266,334, 342-343

concurrent instruction, 136debate over, 18, 19direct code instruction, 199, 202,

204, 205-206embedded phonics instruction, 199,

201-202, 204-206first grade, 172, 173, 177-178, 194-

210kindergarten, 177, 178-194, 250metacognition, 220-223modality teaching, 271nonstandard dialects, 239-241play-based instruction, 183-184,

188, 189-190, 191, 223, 306,320, 321

reciprocal teaching, 139, 221-222second and third grades, 207, 210-

223special education, 269time-on-task rates, 129, 130whole language instruction, 199-

201, 205-206see also Basal reading; Explicit

instruction; Group reading;Homework; Preventiveinterventions; Small-groupinstruction; Teachereducation; Tutors andtutoring

Television, 57, 59, 143, 278, 310-312Tests and testing, 2

criterion vs norm referencing, 95-96

4 4;'

family environment, 122letter-sound correspondence, 115multiple risk factors, 118performance-based, 199Qualitative Reading Inventory, 216research agenda, 336-337Spanish-language, 123speech discrimination vs

phonological awareness, 55standard measures inadequate, 90-

91, 94vocabulary, 109see also High School and Beyond;

Intelligence quotient; NationalAssessment of EducationalProgress

Texas, 304Textbooks, 2, 334

local government, 304political factors, 304state-level action, 300, 302-304, 307theoretical issues, 308

Theoretical issues, 34-39controversial interventions, 271parent-child reading, 144phonological awareness, 52, 54, 248research methodology, general, 33,

34-39, 176, 256-257classificatory analysis, 117correlational studies, general, 39,

101-103, 135, 178prevention efforts, 135-136prospective analyses, 37-38, 90systematic replication, 34-35

second-language speakers, 237-238teacher education, 292, 298, 329textbooks, 308vocabulary, 11, 325word recognition, 236-237

Third grade, 83, 207, 210-223accomplishments required, 83, 210-

211audiovisual presentations, 83automaticity, 210basal reading, 214cognitive development, 219conceptual knowledge, 219-220

INDEX 431

fluency, 83, 213frequency of reading, 214independent reading, 213letter-sound relations, 83monitoring, 222oral reading, 83print, concepts of, 218, 223reading comprehension, general, 83,

213, 219-220, 222recall, 213rereading, 214spelling, 83word recognition, 211, 214writing, 83, 211see also Primary grades, general

Time-on-task rates, 129, 130, 177,229, 230, 238, 272

teacher education, 291, 329tutoring, 255-256, 257, 261

Title I, see Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act

Toys, 59Tutors and tutoring, 12, 207, 231,

248, 254-262, 326-327, 333alphabetic principle, 259, 261automaticity, 259book reading, 255, 257, 259, 261consonants, 259cost of, 255, 258, 260curricular design, 255, 258, 259,

261decoding, 258, 261experimental studies, 256, 257-258first grade, 207, 260, 327fluency, 253, 259, 261independent reading, 255invented spelling, 259-260letter recognition, 255, 259, 261metalinguistic factors, 258phonology, 255, 259

letter-sound relations, 259, 261phonemic awareness, 258, 259phonics, 259, 260

poor children, 260second-language speakers, 260sentences, 255sight words, 259spelling, 259, 260

time-on-task, 255-256, 257, 261training of, 255, 256, 258, 259,

260, 261, 273volunteer, 12, 162, 273, 328vowels, 259word recognition, 258, 261writing, 259, 260see also Reading specialists

U

United Kingdom, 76, 88, 90Urban areas, 30-31, 98, 229, 239, 290,

315, 327-328

V

Verbal abilities, general, 108-110, 302,318, 322

family interactions, 121, 122-123,127, 139-141, 143, 171

memory, 108-110, 132, 323teacher education, 285, 288see also Oral reading; Spoken

words; VocabularyVideotapes, see Audiovisual

presentationsVisual impairments, 89, 105, 271Visual skills, 116Vocabulary, 4, 223

African Americans, 156comprehension and word

knowledge, 63, 67, 216-219,220

defined, 46-48early language development, 47, 57,

63, 67, 75, 79, 107, 109first grade, 81, 203first-third grades, 6, 48, 321, 322,

344high school, 48kindergarten, 80, 109parental involvement, 139, 319phonics and, 173preschool, 107, 109-111, 148, 170,

280, 318, 319, 320, 321

4 4 ",

432 INDEX

reading comprehension and,general, 63, 67, 216-219, 220

school restructuring, 231, 232second grade, 215second-language speakers, 11, 325semantics and, 48socioeconomic status, 47spelling and, 6, 321, 322, 344teacher education, 280, 332tests and testing, 109theoretical issues, 11, 325see also Naming; Sight words;

Word games; Wordrecognition

Voluntary reading, 81-83Volunteer tutors, 12, 162, 273, 328Vowels

African American dialect, 239first grade, 198invented spelling, 59second grade, 212syllable defined, 22tutoring, 259

Welfare reform, 320Whole language instruction, 199-201,

205-206Word games, 143, 151-152, 187, 203,

204, 208riddles, 223see also Rhymes and rhyming

Word recognition, 4, 6, 7, 15, 220,272, 315-316, 322, 343

automaticity and, 75, 79, 90, 252-253; see also Sight words

computer-based interventions, 252-253

curriculum casualties, 25-26early childhood development, 50,

53, 62, 65-67, 70-75, 79, 80,111

first grade, 194, 198, 204, 205-206,262

fourth grade, 214

444

kindergarten, 180, 181-182, 188,189, 249, 251, 322

models of, 214morphemes and, 73-74, 153neuroscience, 24onset-rime, 51, 185, 206, 259phonics and, 173, 259reading disabled children, 252-254rebus books, 182, 204second grade, 205-206, 212-213,

322-323second-language speakers, 236-237small-group instruction, 262, 263social development and, 262, 263special education, 270teacher education, 285, 330theoretical issues, 236-237third-fourth grades, 214third grade, 211, 214tutoring, 258, 261see also Alphabetic principle;

Automaticity; Frustrationlevel; Semantics; Spokenwords; Word games

Writing, 272, 314, 323computer-assisted instruction, 265early childhood development, 42,

57, 59-60, 69-70, 142, 149deaf children, 164

first grade, 81, 196, 197, 198, 200,204, 207, 209

first-third grades, 6, 7, 285, 321-322

Head Start, 281kindergarten, 183-184, 188, 189,

191literacy defined, 42preventive interventions, 278second grade, 82small-group instruction, 263state action, 302teacher education, 280, 285, 296,

298third grade, 83, 211tutoring, 259, 260see also Alphabetic principle;

Emergent writing; Spelling

PrcyciAtim lIcoding Difficultic

The book that "could serve as a road map to national standards."The Nevi York Times

.`... tackles some of the most explosive issues in education."Nesday,

clearly defines the key elements all children need in order to become goodreaders."

Richard Riley. U.S. Secretary of Education

"The contentious, decades-long debate about how to teach reading is over."The Boston Globe

"A long-awaited report on how to best teach children to read."The Los Angeles Times

With literacy problems plaguing as Many as four in ten American children, this importantbook draws upon the expertise of psychologists, neurobiologists, and educators to estab-lish clear recommendations on several prominent education controversies.This bookexplores how to prevent reading difficulties in the context of social, historical, cultural.and biological factors.

Recommendations identify the groi ps of children at risk, outline effective instruction forpreschool and early grades, and examine approaches to dialects and bilingualism Theseimportant findings will aid the professional development of teachers and fill in the gapsthat remain in understanding how children learn to read. In a clear narrative, the bookdiscusses the many levels of implications for parents, teachers, schools. communities, themedia, and the government.

Contrasting the impaired progress of children with reading difficulties with so-called nor-mal progress, this book examines the factors that put children at risk of poor reading. Itexplores in detail how to foster literacy from birth through kindergarten and the primarygrades, including the evaluation of philosophies, systems, and materials commonly used toteach reading.

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESSThe National Academy Press publishes the reportsissued by the National Academy of Sciences, theNational Academy of Engineering. the Institute ofMedicine, and the National Research Council, alloperating under a charter granted by the Congressof the United States.

'0/ W W.nap.edu

ISBN 0-309-06418X

9 780309 064187

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BEST COPY AVAILABLE .4" 6

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preventing reading difficulties in young children

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